Turnabout Timewarp
by Sith Droideka
Summary: Diego Armando needs to appeal his prison sentence, which is wholly disproportionate to his crime. At least according to some self-proclaimed time-travelers/conspiracy theorists. Meanwhile in the future, Miguel Fey-Armando looks for his missing friends.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: The ground shakes. Before a grave, a plain headstone reading "aireyverkhovensky", the dirt shifts and cracks. Suddenly, a pasty-white hand thrusts up from the ground, ragged nails clawing at the soil as the author drags herself out of her grave.**

 **"HA HA HA!" she screeches, "I FINISHED THE FIRST JANAVERSE CASEFIC!" She crawls forward, legs still trapped in her tomb. "I FINISHED THE WHOLE THING!"**

 **She stands dramatically, fixing her glasses and swaying on her feet as lighting flashes in the background in a scene worthy of the best Bela Lugosi movies, for example Plan 9 From Outer Space. "MY READERS NO LONGER HAVE TO WAIT!" the author howls triumphantly to the sky. "I WILL UPLOAD CHAPTERS ROUGHLY ONCE A WEEK!"**

 **And then she shambles off to continue work on Turnabout, I Do and Turnabout of the Night (coming soon!).**

* * *

 _January 16 (2054), 5:00 PM, Gatewater Apartments, Room #281_

Maria Fey-Armando's phone was ringing. Groaning, she put one arm over her eyes and groped around her bedside table for her phone.

"Fey-Armando," she mumbled into the receiver.

"Heyyy, Maria. Did I interrupt your nap?" Oh, of _all_ the times for her younger brother to call…!

"Miguel, I have the migraine from Hell. This had better be important."

"Your headache can't be _that_ bad."

"I was in a coma two weeks ago, Miguel."

"Alright, alright, sorry," Miguel said, "I just found an old file lying around that you might find interesting, Miss Classified Information."

"Been there, read that," Maria yawned.

"It's about Dad."

Maria's ears pricked up. Their father, Diego Armando, couldn't exactly be said to be related to the assignment given to her by Quetzalcoatl Law Firm (or at least the assignment formerly given to her; she was on medical leave at the moment and the exact nature of her work once she returned was still up in the air), but there must have been some reason for Miguel to call her up like this. Surely it wasn't just lazily-filled paperwork from one of the cases he had handled.

"You interested, sis?"

"Go ahead," Maria said, sitting up.

There was the sound of papers shifting, snapping on the other end of the line. "How much do you know about Dad's sentencing after he murdered our grandmother?"

"Oh," Maria said flatly, "so it's just old court records after all." She laid back down, sighing. _Gosh_ , her head hurt.

"Wait wait wait," Miguel said. There was the distinct sound of coffee being slurped. "Just… what do you know about it?"

"He got life in prison," Maria said, "and his defense attorney was some unknown rookie who never took another case after that. That's all."

"Wrong!" Miguel said brightly (and Maria grimaced at the volume), "there were actually two trials. The first one, he had a state-appointed defense attorney and he was sentenced-…"

"No dramatic pauses, please, Miguel."

Instead, a dramatic slurp of coffee. "He was sentenced to death."

"…I see. And the second one?"

"You could at least act a little surprised or appalled or sad or something."

"Miguel. Headache. Nap. Please hurry up."

"Fine, fine," Miguel said, "anyway, the second one was where he had the unknown rookie who never took another case after that. Apparently, he or she just showed up out of nowhere and convinced him to appeal his sentence."

"That's in the records?"

"Mm-mm. I'm just assuming that because he appealed in mid-April, but was sentenced in early February. I looked for reports of prison incidents or something between then and then, but there wasn't anything."

"So he randomly decided that he didn't want to die… after two months?" Maria said, getting up again and getting herself a cup of xocolatl.

"Well, you know Dad. Can't really say that he decided he _didn't_ want to die."

"True."

"Anyway," Miguel said, "the only real conclusion we can come to is that the appeal was the defense attorney's idea."

"I agree," Maria said, "so who was the defense attorney?"

"…I don't know."

Maria choked a little on her xocolatl. "You don't know? _How?_ Shouldn't there at least be a _name_ on those records?"

"Nope," Miguel said, "the name, the ID number, everything - it's all been blacked out. Like it was scribbled out by a pen."

"Great," Maria said flatly, "take it to the forensics department and see what's under the ink."

"Way ahead of you." It sounded like he was waving the papers around in agitation. "It only _looks_ like it was scribbled out by a pen. I took it to forensics earlier today and they said there wasn't anything underneath it. As far as they can tell, when whoever was filling out the forms was doing so, they just scribbled instead of writing down the defense's information."

"Interesting," Maria said, "think you can get that file to me tonight?"

"Heh." A slurp of coffee. "I knew you'd ask that."

* * *

 _January 16, 5:00 PM, Wright Anything Agency, Roof_

"So what exactly did you want with us, Wat?" Alois von Karma-Gavin said, rubbing the back of his neck and looking around. The roof looked the same as ever. The sun was very close to setting, so it was rather dark. The half-moon in the sky looked imposing, ominous. _Don't let die Einstellung get to you_ , Alois thought nervously.

"Yes, we do not have a lot of time to waste," Jana, his sister, said irritably. Alois didn't believe her.

Watson Justice stood at the dangerous edge of the roof, back to Alois and Jana, looking silently over the buildings of this rundown part of Los Angeles. She seemed deep in thought, and looked suitably striking with her long white labcoat flapping against her bare legs in the chilly breeze.

 _Sie ist nicht kalt?_ Alois wondered, just as Watson turned around, her light brown hair flaring with sufficient melodrama. There was a look in her eyes that, for some reason, caused the word _Lebensmüde_ to pop into Alois' head. Same with Jana, judging by her expression.

Watson looked from Alois to Jana for a long moment before saying conspiratorially, "what I'm about to say does not leave this roof. Do you two agree?"

"Tja… ja," Alois said.

"Ja," Jana said, then corrected herself, "yes."

Watson climbed back onto the proper side of the railing, stuck her hands deep in her pockets, and said, in the most grave voice Alois had ever heard her use, "Time travel."

It was all Alois could do _not_ to laugh. Jana didn't resist so well. Watson glared at her, although Jana continued chortling.

"I'm serious," Watson said, "do you two remember what Ares said at Alois' trial last month?"

That shut Jana up. "Don't remind me," Alois groaned.

"Clay Justice is crazy," Jana pointed out.

"He doesn't exactly have all of his glasses in the cupboard," Alois added, passing his hand in front of his face in a _der spinnt_ gesture.

"I'm not disputing that," Watson said, "but he was right about the time travel thing."

"…right," Alois and Jana said at the same time.

Watson sighed exasperatedly and pulled out of her coat what looked like an iPad with a taser welded onto it. "Ta-daah," she said unenthusiastically.

"Was… ist das," Alois said, regarding it suspiciously.

"An art project?" Jana guessed.

"No," Watson said shortly, "it's a time travel device. Ares mentioned we were working on it - now that he's not hindering me anymore with his stupid requirements and reports, I've finished it."

"Uh-huh," Jana said drily.

"Really," Watson said earnestly. "Okay, look - I'm going to set it to April 2019." She turned the screen so that Alois and Jana could clearly see it - it looked like the antiquated MASON system given a sloppy input-based overhaul - and punched i [ENTER] [ENTER]. The screen blinked orange and blue for almost a full minute, bathing the roof in complimentary colors. Alois was about to give up (what was he expecting, anyway?) when he noticed that not all of the oranges and blues were coming from the tablet.

"What on earth is _that?!_ " Jana demanded, jumping back and pointing her riding crop shakily at a flickering, semi-transparent orange and blue rectangular plane of what seemed to be gaseous, flowing light.

"A door," Watson said simply, then walked up to it and boldly stuck her arm through. Alois was stunned to see that it did not emerge out of the other side of the 'door' but instead seemed to sharply dissolve halfway though it, as though she had been bloodlessly amputated.

"What happened to your hand?" Alois said, inspecting the door from every angle he could. Jana hesitantly did the same.

"It traveled through time," Watson said, "anything going through the door does. Right now it should be floating above the roof of Wright and Co. Law Offices on April twelfth, 2019, at-" she checked the tablet, "-5:17 in the afternoon, give or take a few hours. I think."

"You think," Jana said flatly.

"I haven't done any major tests yet," Watson said, withdrawing her hand from the door and examining it closely. It looked perfectly fine. "Anyway, the door remains stable for about an hour and a half, or at least it does if there's not much going through it. After that, we'd have to make a new door, which shouldn't be a problem since this device _should_ work at any point in time and space, except as I said there seems to be a few hours of flux around the opening of the door, so that could complicate things in the present if-"

"Halt, halt, halt mal," Alois said, crossing his arms, "Wat, why exactly did you call us to see this?"

"And when did you have time to do this?" Jana said, this time directing her suspicious look towards Watson instead of the time-travel device, "I thought you were studying for the bar exam." Alois gave her an irritated look. _Way to change the subject._

Watson waved her free hand dismissively. "I've actually completed my book-studies and I'm scheduled to take the bar exam next week. Don't worry about it."

Alois noted that that didn't actually answer Jana's question, but figured that his question was the more important one anyway. "Wat. Why are we here?"

Watson glanced evasively to the side, then said cautiously, "Remember how I said I haven't done any major tests yet?"

"Ach Götter," Alois exclaimed, burying his head in his hands.

"Why us?" Jana immediately demanded.

"Because it's already happened," Watson said, digging around in her pocket and pulling out some trial paperwork. Jana grabbed it and studied it, blue eyes flicking rapidly from side to side.

"This is from 2019," she said, "the defendant is Diego Armando, on the charge of the murder of Misty Fey. …it's an appeal, a death sentence appeal."

"He got das Todesurteil?" Alois said, blinking, "I thought he got life in prison."

"He did after this appeal," Jana said, "however… there is no one listed for the defense attorney."

"Ja wirklich? Let me see," Alois said, grabbing the paper. Now that he was able to see it more closely, he could tell it was actually a photocopy. But the more noticeable thing was that it looked as though all of the information relating to the defense attorney had been crossed out. "Wat, where did you get this?"

"Your boyfriend brought it to the forensics department to see if there was anything under the scribbles. I happened to be there at the time and got a photocopy of it while the scientists weren't looking."

"Was there anything under the scribbles?" Alois said, handing the paper back to Jana, "by the way, Miguel is _ein_ Freund, not _mien_ Freund."

"I have no idea what that means," Watson said, "also, there was nothing under the scribbles. They said something like… when whoever was filling out the forms was doing so, they just scribbled instead of writing down the defense's information. But I have reason to believe that what _should_ have gone there was actually a time-traveller."

"What makes you say that?" Jana said.

"The timeline always corrects itself," Watson said enigmatically, "so anyway, Jana's really the only one it could be…"

"What?" Jana said.

"How did you come to that conclusion?" Alois said.

Watson held her hand up. "Who else could it be? I don't have my badge at the moment but the first test - the one where we go back to April 2019 - is _tonight_. I can't go to anyone older than me; anyone older than 25 is far too set in their ways of thinking to even humor me until I open the door." She tilted her head again towards the rectangle of gas-light. "So Jana it is. And Alois, I called you here because I knew you wouldn't let Jana go on her own."

Alois and Jana exchanged glances, then looked back at Watson. "I am not really following your logic," Jana said, "why do you not just wait until next week when you can… appeal Diego Armando's sentence yourself?"

"Because the first test happened tonight," Watson said. She made it sound so obvious. "Besides, I already know that you two become regular time travelers, along with Ares and I."

"Was?" Alois said.

"Why would we want to become 'regular time travelers' along with you and your insane half-brother?" Jana said, taken aback.

Watson shrugged. "It's not so much about what you want," she said, "I just have evidence that it happened."

"Aber…" Alois looked over the low buildings of this part of Los Angeles, "…do you really think our actions are so in Stein gemeißelt?"

"Set in stone," Jana translated with a sigh.

"Well, tell me this," Watson said with a pale smile, "do you think the past is set in stone?"

Again, Alois and Jana exchanged glances. An answer to that suddenly seemed beyond their grasp.

"But," Watson continued, "thanks to the existence of time travel, we can see that there isn't really a difference between the past, the present, and the future. So if the past is set in stone, so are the other two."

"So… fate?" Jana said.

"If that's what you want to call it."

Alois frowned. "…aber, aber we're going back into the past to change something, ja? Doesn't that mean that the past is not set in stone?"

Watson gestured towards the appeal trial record that Jana was still holding. "It's already happened," she said simply.

 _What a bleak outlook to have on life_ , Alois thought, but turned to Jana anyway. " _What do you think?_ " he asked her in German. " _Should we do it?_ "

" _I don't know_ ," Jana responded in same, " _quite frankly, I'm not sure we can even trust Watson Justice anymore_."

Alois nodded. " _I thought Clay was crazy, but right now she's making him look sane. Do you think she'd hurt us if we refused?_ "

Jana surreptitiously scrutinized Watson for a moment. Alois did the same. She was looking at them with interest, probably because she had heard her and Clay's names. " _I'm not sure I would put it past her. Anyway, she may just grab us and throw us through that door… and I already know that she can pick me up. She does that whenever Maya Valerie and I are picking on Diego._ "

Alois shook his head. " _So what you're saying is we've got no choice_."

" _I don't know that she can lift you. You should run for it._ "

" _No way. I'm not leaving my little sister behind. What if something goes wrong?_ "

" _What's the worst that can happen?_ " Jana smirked confidently at him.

Alois and Jana stared at each other for another moment, then turned back to Watson. "We're going," Alois said in English.

"Oh, good," Watson said, with a broad, squinty smile like her father's, "for a minute there I thought I was just going to have to throw you two through the door." She laughed disarmingly, but chills went down Alois' spine regardless.

"She was just kidding, right?" Jana muttered.

"You go first," Alois told Watson. She shook her head.

"If the portal destabilizes while you're going through it, it'll be easier for me to bring you back from the past than it would be for me to bring myself back to the present."

 _Sounds like das gleiche to me_ , Alois thought, but stepped towards the door regardless. Hesitantly, he held one gloved hand up to its wavering surface, held it there for a moment, then swallowed hard and pressed his hand through. It offered no resistance, although it did feel faintly warm, and he felt his hand tingle as it disappeared from the present. The feeling subsided after a few seconds.

"If I don't make it back, tell Mama and Papa I love them," Alois muttered to the dark winter night, then stepped through all the way.

* * *

 _April 12 (2019), 3:30 PM, Ayasato Offices and Apartments, Flat 2-B_

When Alois had gone through the door, Jana couldn't deny a sort of panic that sprang up at the back of her mind at seeing her older brother - her _only_ brother - dissolve into orange and blue. The door had crackled a few arcs of purple and blue-silver for a second or two, then returned to its previous impassive fluidity. Watson had sighed in relief then.

"Looks like it's still stable," Watson had said, clearly pleased with herself, "alright, Jana, in you go."

Jana had looked at the door with trepidation for a moment, then took a deep breath and ran through it. Might as well get it over with as soon as possible, be done with it before she had the chance to turn back-

There was a brief flash of heat and then she slammed into something warm and solid. By the time she had regained her bearings (she was, in fact, on the floor) her whole body had stopped feeling like pins and needles.

"Jana?"

She looked up. Evidently, the thing she had collided with was in fact Alois.

"Na?"

"I am fine," she said, waving away his offered hand and standing up on her own. She looked around. This didn't look like the roof of the Wright Anything Agency - er, Wright and Co. Law Offices. It looked more like an empty, dark room of similar layout to a certain half of WAA. "Alois, where are we?"

"Ich weiß nicht."

Watson stepped through the door now, looked around, and cursed softly to herself. "I guess it doesn't do as well spatially as it does temporally." She looked at the tazer-tablet device. "Hmm, I take that back. We're probably closer to the Agency's roof than we are to 5:45."

"When are we?" Jana asked, afraid of the answer.

"April twelfth, 2019, just like I said… except we're about two hours and fifteen minutes early."

"Great," Alois said, "at least we're at the right day." He looked at the door, which looked very much the same as it had on the roof of WAA and was actually the only thing illuminating the room now that Watson had put away her time device. "If we go back through that thing, it'll return us to exactly when we left, right?"

"Yes," Watson said, "I'm reasonably certain that the time distortion effect only goes one way. And anyway, 2.25 hours is actually a fantastic margin of error. My first small tests would be off by years. Actually, I think I accidentally sent a pocketwatch to the second century, B.C., when I was trying to send it to myself half an hour in the past…"

Jana ignored her science babble. The important thing right now was to figure out where they were, so she headed to the exit door (or at least what should be the exit door) and boldly opened it, squinting into mid-afternoon sunlight. She stuck her head out into the stairwell and looked around. Yes, this was definitely right on the doorstep of WAA - although it looked much cleaner, and much less run-down.

"You can really tell it's almost forty years younger," Alois said, peering out over Jana's head. Jana nodded absently, then stood straight and turned back to Watson, twisting her riding crop in her hands.

"Now what, Watson Justice?"

* * *

 **Okay, so those of you actually read Long Arm of the Law will probably remember the various conspiracies revolving around Godot's prison sentence. As the summary implies, that's what this fic is about. This will also be the kind of fic where you finish reading it and then look fearfully at the author and wonder "Just what else do they have planned?"**

 **The answer is "a LOT", by the way.**


	2. Chapter 2

_April 12 (2019), 3:40 PM, Ayasato Offices and Apartments, Second-floor landing_

It was times like this that Phoenix wished he still had Maya with him, if only because carrying all the groceries himself was a drag. Of course, in retrospect, Maya still made him carry the groceries anyway. _…maybe I_ should _look into getting a license and a car_ , Phoenix thought tiredly as he trooped up the stairs to his office.

He was surprised to find three teenagers - two teenagers? The brown-haired girl in the lab coat gave the impression of being at last in her twenties somehow - standing on the landing right outside his door. Oddly, they looked even more surprised to see him, and the oldest one elbowed the youngest one - a blonde girl wearing black and ruffles and _is that an attorney's badge?_ \- and hissed something Phoenix couldn't hear.

"Hi," Phoenix said. Was meeting clients while carrying groceries bad? Somehow he'd managed to avoid that up until now. "Can I help you three?"

"Uh… no?" the blond girl said in an affected German accent. The remaining girl - no, wait, that was a boy - the one with Franziska-colored hair and purple frills - elbowed her and gave Lab Coat a look.

"We have some questions for you about a case you handled in - February-" he said, in a lighter German accent.

"Can we come in?" Lab Coat said. She, at least, had a solid LA accent.

Phoenix blinked. _Reporters? In April?_ he thought. Still, he said, "sure," and opened the door with some difficulty. It helped that Franziska Hair took some grocery bags off his hands.

Okay, so it was a bit weird that all three of them seemed to know the layout of his office, despite him never having seen any of them before in his life. Surely there was a reason for that - or was he just being paranoid? "Did you three know Mia?"

Short Blonde gave him a look. "Why do you ask, U- Phoenix Wright?"

"Nevermind. What was it you wanted to ask? No, wait, sorry - you didn't tell me your names."

There was an awkward pause. _Definitely_ weird.

"Watson Justice," Lab Coat said flatly, and the other two gave her an alarmed look.

"Alois," Franziska Hair said, then cleared his throat, "Gavin. No relation to the defense attorney." Phoenix raised his eyebrows. There was a defense attorney named Gavin?

"…Jana Gavin," Short Blonde said, sounding oddly clipped. _Siblings?_ Phoenix wondered. They clearly both took after different parents.

"And," Watson said, putting her hands firmly on Alois' shoulders, "Miss Gavin and I must be going; Mr. Gavin here was the one with the questions." And she flounced out, practically dragging Jana behind her, ignoring Alois' sudden 'Don't leave me alone with him!' look.

"…so," Phoenix said after a very long pause.

"So," Alois said, then bit his lip and looked evasively to the side. Phoenix sighed. This was going to be interesting.

* * *

 _April 12, 4:00 PM, Detention Center_

"You just left Alois alone with a 26-year-old Uncle Wright," Jana hissed at Watson, "what were you thinking? Were you thinking at all?"

"He'll be fine," Watson said, "we have more important things to worry about."

"We just abandoned my brother 35 years in the past!"

"Shh!" Watson snapped, looking quickly at the security camera. "Just because the timeline corrects itself doesn't mean we can go around telling everyone we're from the future." She glanced at the camera again. "I know that footage will mysteriously be corrupted, and I know that people who belong in this time will quickly forget about us - with some exceptions, I believe - but we have no way of knowing what kind of ideas we can plant in their subconsciouses."

Jana wrinkled her nose at Watson. "What are you going _on_ about?"

"Records can be altered but the human brain never truly forgets anything," Watson lectured, "no one's going to look at us in 2054 and realize that they met us in 2019, but if we tell them what's in their future, even if they don't remember being told exactly, they still might have a slightly different reaction and make slightly different decisions than they did originally and change the whole timeline."

"I thought all the changes to the timeline had already happened," Jana said wryly.

"Alright, more to the point: we won't be forgotten until we leave this time. Meaning that if we tell them we're time-travelers, the whole time we're interacting with them, they'll _know_ we're time-travelers. I don't want to complicate things like that."

Jana huffed. She did have a point. "So what are the... exceptions, Watson Justice?"

"Other time-travelers," Watson frowned, "and-"

Diego Armando walked into the room on the other side of the glass, sat down, and summoned a cup of coffee, sipping it impassively. Although his eyes could not be seen, it was obvious that he was giving Jana and Watson a dead glare.

"Ladies," he said after a long silence.

"Diego Armando," Jana said, bowing slightly. "My name is-"

"Don't care," Armando said, taking a swig of coffee, "I'm going to die soon. I don't need whatever it is you're selling."

"I do not think people come to _prisons_ to sell things," Jana said dryly.

"Life insurance," Watson suggested. Jana glared at her.

"My name is Jana Gavin. I am a lawyer," Jana said shortly, showing him her badge. (She hated doing that - she was much more comfortable with people recognizing her on sight.)

"Don't need one anymore," Armando said with a smirk, "I'm not planning on appealing."

"You are," Watson said insistently, "you have a future." Jana privately rolled her eyes at her complete lack of subtlety.

Armando shrugged. "Of course I do. A date with the executioner, and later, Mia Fey."

"Mia Fey, yes, executioner, no," Watson said, "you need to appeal your sentence."

"You have to admit it is extreme to hand out a death sentence over what was essentially defense of another person," Jana said, crossing her arms.

"What's one more extreme to add to my 'life'?" Armando said, "there's nothing left for me."

"A family," Jana blurted out. Ugh, and right after she noted how bad _Watson_ was at this…

There was a very pregnant pause as Armando gave the impression of eyeing her. "…a family," he said flatly.

"Hypothetically," Watson said quickly, "It's hypothetically possible for a spirit channeler to be a surrogate for a dead mother-"

"Not what I meant," Armando said, then slammed his mug on the desk. "Cut the crap, girls. Why are you two so concerned about my 'future'? I've never met either of you in my life. And you, _Miss Gavin_ ," he pointed his mug angrily at Jana, "you're, what, fourteen?"

"F-Fifteen."

"Bull. I would have heard of a fifteen-year-old defense attorney. And," he added, apparently catching Watson opening her mouth, "don't give me the coma excuse. I can see how green she is - can't have been practicing more than a year. I would have heard of you."

Jana gave Watson a helpless look. She shrugged.

Armando continued. "Who are you, really? Some kind of midget? Only von Karmas debut at such a ridiculously young age."

"I am a von Karma," Jana snapped, then immediately clapped her hands over her mouth.

"…now we're getting somewhere," Armando said, taking a sip of coffee.

* * *

 _January 16 (2054), 6:45 PM, Wright Anything Agency_

Miguel rocked on his heels while he waited for someone to come get the door. He'd already dropped the tampered-with(?) records off with Maria, although she quickly caught on to - and foiled - his little plan to figure out what exactly QLF was _doing_. Maybe he didn't necessarily have a _right_ to know, but not knowing made him anxious, especially since this shady kind of business had already threatened his sister's life and gotten his kitten arrested.

 _Wait_ , Miguel thought, stilling, _didn't Ares say that he was would've killed my kitten, too, if he hadn't…?_ He shuddered, suddenly glad for what happened with that crazy serial-kidnapper-turned-mass-murderer four years ago. Maybe Maria was right about that "Everything happens for a reason" junk. Of course, that particular case probably still had a couple more reasons left in it, didn't it-?

The door opened. "Oh, hello, Miguel."

"Hey, Miles. What are you doing here?"

"Can't I visit my brother and sisters once in a while?" Miles Wright said, ushering Miguel in. "I just happened to be in the area."

"Me too," Miguel said, looking around the Agency. The work day was over and all the senior lawyers - Kristoph Gavin, Apollo Justice, Athena Cykes - had gone home, so it was unusually quiet. "Ahh, that explains it - your dads aren't here."

"Don't refer to Edgeworth as my dad," Miles said stiffly as Miguel commandeered the coffee maker. He liked the one here better than the one at the prosecutorial offices, honestly, probably because his own father had 'modified' it back when he used to work here. "But yes, they're out right now."

"Unpaid babysitting, huh?" Miguel said casually as he waited for the coffee maker to do its thing.

"Actually, that would be me," Misty Wright, Miles' younger sister - the one with the spiky hair and only one braid as opposed to two, said, walking into the room, "Miles just kinda showed up."

Miles rolled his eyes. "Diego texted me to whine about how you're a tyrant."

Misty sniffed. "There's only so many Cadmium Samurai reruns a woman can take." She glanced at Miguel. "So what're you doing here?"

"Just in the neighborhood," Miguel shrugged, taking his cup of coffee, "Maria lives just down the street, you know - anyway, my kitten mentioned earlier today that Wat wanted to see him here…"

"Oh, right, Alois," Misty said, turning to Miguel, "are he and Watson still here? Didn't they go up to the roof?"

"No idea," Miles said, "didn't they go up there before I actually got here?"

"Shame on you, Miles," Miguel said, taking a sardonic sip of coffee, "don't you know you're supposed to be aware of your ex-girlfriend's location _at all times_ when you're in the same building?"

Miles turned pink. "She wasn't my girlfriend-"

"Come on. I know aaaaall about how you two hung out at Themis."

"It wasn't like that."

"I also know how you and a couple bottles of grape juice almost got her charged with statutory-"

"Th-those weren't _my_ bottles!" Miles sputtered, turning redder, " _she_ brought them, and got them from her stupid half-brother. And we didn't even end up-!"

"Ooookay, that's way too much information," Misty interrupted. "Miguel, Alois and Watson and Jana went up to the roof like two hours ago, and I'm pretty sure they haven't been down since."

"Alright, alright," Miguel said, chuckling into his coffee cup at Miles' flustration. "I'll just pop up there and say hi real quick, and then I'll be off."

"How old were you when this whole 'statutory grape juice' not-incident happened, anyway?" Miguel heard Misty ask as he headed for the door to the roof.

"Sixteen, old as you," came the faint reply, followed by a short, incredulous laugh. Miguel rolled his eyes as he mounted the stairs. There was the same age gap between him and Watson as there was between Watson and Miles, and they had also hung out at Themis, but _he_ had never gotten _her_ drunk and… whatever.

"Heyy, Wat, filly-" he got to the roof- "kitten…?" He looked around. It was empty. Completely empty. Except for a single piece of paper that flapped ineffectually, caught between the railing and the cold breeze, its whiteness almost luminous against the night.

"…odd," Miguel said to himself, suddenly wary. If it had been anyone or anywhere else, he would have just thought that they had gone back downstairs without anyone noticing. But WAA was cramped and always had too many people in it, and Jana was best friends with Wright's youngest daughter, Maya Valerie, and Watson's bike was still parked in front of the Agency. They should still be in the building. They should still be on the roof.

Looking around cautiously (not that they could have exactly been hiding up here), Miguel strode across the roof and snatched up the piece of paper. He glanced around again before pulling his cell phone to use as a flashlight. His eyes widened when he saw what it was: a photocopy of a page of the exact court record he had just entrusted to Maria. _But why?_

Holding the page carefully, he hit the stairs again. Something here wasn't adding up, that much was obvious. Seven o'clock at night or not, though, there was still going to be _someone_ at the forensics department…

* * *

 _April 12 (2019), 5:30 PM, Wright and Co. Law Offices_

There was a knock at the door. "I'll get it," Alois said quickly, practically bounding away from Wright.

"You… don't really have to…" Wright said, bewildered. He'd been kind of like that for the past half-hour. Maybe more.

Alois wrenched the door open, sure his face wasn't showing how confused and borderline-panicked he actually was. He had a brief moment to feel relief when he saw Jana and Watson standing on the landing, but that was relief was short-lived, as he and Jana said at the same time, "He knows."

Watson looked back and forth between them, then scowled at Alois, who took a step back. (Fortunately, he managed to make this look like an invitation to step inside instead of a gesture of fear.) "You told him?" Watson said.

"It just kind of… passiert," Alois said sheepishly. "You know I don't know that much about the Hazakura incident, also dann…"

"Let me guess," Jana said, "he got suspicious and started asking his own questions."

"I take it Herr Armando did the same thing?"

Watson sighed irritably. "At least with Jana I could do damage control - what did you _tell_ him, Alois?"

"Nichts," Alois said defensively, "he just knows that I'm from the future… or else that I'm verrückt. He _asked_ about it, but I refused to tell him anything."

Watson sighed. "At least there's that."

"You did kind of throw us into this unprepared," Jana pointed out, irritated. "You did not even tell Alois about the potential consequences of talking about the future."

"Ja," Alois said, "for all I know, everything would have been gut. But I thought…"

"No, no, you thought right," Watson said, "but in regards to the timeline correcting itself…" She started lecturing Alois about subconsciouses and such. Judging by Jana's expression, this was her second time.

"Watson Justice," Jana said - whined, really - "who else besides other time-travelers would remember us when we leave?"

Watson fell silent. "There are certain circumstances. Rare ones… but actually," she said, looking vaguely up at the ceiling, "people with neurological damage - or at least certain types of neurological damage - don't forget, no matter the circumstances. Sure, they might rationalize it away, or it might slip their minds eventually - but forgetting is not compulsory. They can remember, and probably will. It… kind of would leave an impression on people if, you know, they could remember it."

"Which brain-damaged people can?" Jana said, raising an eyebrow.

"How do you know this?" Alois said, also raising an eyebrow.

Watson shifted under their gazes. "Do you ever think that Mr. Armando acted kind of… odd around all three of us, when we were growing up?"

Jana and Alois exchanged glances. "Unmöglich," Alois breathed. He wasn't sure if he wanted to grin or cringe.

"You are saying," Jana said slowly, turning back to Watson, "that Diego Armando actually _remembers_ meeting us twenty years before we were born?"

"Achtzehn," Alois corrected her.

"Well, fourteen years," Watson said faintly, "but yes. He does - did. Will." She frowned severely. "Which is why, I suppose, it isn't a big deal here. Mr. Armando would have known about the time-traveling thing by '33 anyway, and as long as we don't actively tell Mr. Wright anything about his future, his decisions should remain the same and…" She trailed off.

"He might figure some things out on his own," Jana said, glancing at Alois. It was almost like she _knew_ Alois had accidentally called him Onkel Wright once or twice or several times. To say nothing of the fact that he probably had a candidate in mind for who Alois and Jana's mother could possibly be.

"War nicht so wichtig. How did your meeting with Herr Armando go?"

"We convinced him to appeal," Jana said brightly, for her, anyway.

"At least the courts we won't need to worry about," Watson sighed.

"Kleine Schwester, have you _ever_ done an appeal trial before?" Alois said, frowning.

Jana shrugged. "I have studied them. They are not that different from a normal trial."

"…you're not going for a nicht schuldig, though," Alois said, "Herr Armando ended up with life in prison, not a release. You shouldn't change that."

Jana frowned. "I know." She glared at Alois and added, "It does _not_ count against my record."

Alois laughed. "Ich weiß, ich weiß. Beruhige dich."

They abruptly fell silent as Wright wandered over. "What's going on over here?" he asked, sounding almost unnecessarily suspicious.

"We were just discussing where we were going to sleep tonight," Alois said quickly, pulling out the ol' puppy-dog eyes (or kitty-cat eyes, per Miguel's pet name for him). Watson and Jana both gave him slightly startled looks, but said nothing. Had they even thought about that? "See, we have no place to stay until the trial is over - our parents haven't even met yet. We have no home to go back to, and our money is dated from the future! No hotel would accept it!"

"…I guess…" Wright said, pulling a nickel out of his pocket and inspecting it. Alois had given it to him an hour or two ago, and it indeed said IN GOD WE TRUST - LIBERTY - 2051. "…I guess you three can use the guest bedroom for tonight… or however long until you, uh… go back to your own time." He gave them all a wary look. "You already know where it is, don't you?"

"Maya Valerie's room," Jana said when Alois and Watson both looked at her.

"Whatever that means," Wright grumbled, "I need to make a phone call." He stepped out onto the landing and closed the door behind him a little too swiftly.

"…nice," Jana said. Alois bowed pompously.

"Y-Yeah," Watson said, "I wasn't planning on even thinking about that until it actually got dark…"

"I… had not quite realized that we will have to spend the next few days in the past," Jana said, blinking, "even if the trial only lasts one day-"

"Which it should," Watson said.

"-it is scheduled for Monday, the 15th."

Alois frowned. "Normally I'd say we could investigate, aber…"

Jana crossed her arms. "Maybe there is something we can investigate," she said, "why exactly he was given a death sentence."

"There are some theories that were still being kicked around in '54," Watson said, shrugging, "I have no idea how we'll be able to confirm any of them in this time."

"Jana, um ehrlich zu sein, all you need to do is get his sentence changed, and you could probably do that just by pointing out how disproportionate it is."

Jana scoffed. "Have you no professional curiosity?"

Alois inclined his head towards Watson. "Isn't professional curiosity what got us in this mess in the first place?"

"Hey!"

* * *

 _April 12, 8:00 PM, Ayasato Offices and Apartments, Front sidewalk_

As much as Edgeworth would have liked to make fun of him over it, Wright didn't often call him with some kind of incoherent story and end up begging him to come meet him in front of his law office. Clearly, it was serious… although as he pulled over to see Wright pacing in front of the building, turning something frenetically over and over in his hand, Edgeworth wondered if the crazy people here were the alleged time-travelers, or Wright himself.

"Edgeworth," Wright said, hugely relieved, as Edgeworth switched off his car. "I was starting to think you thought I was high or something."

"I'm not ruling it out," Edgeworth said dubiously, "but I came as soon as I wrapped up what I was working on."

"C'mon. I don't say stupid things without proof," Wright protested, and shoved his hand towards Edgeworth. There was a silver coin in it.

"Yes, you do. You do all the time," Edgeworth muttered, picking up the nickel. "Now, what's this?"

"Look at the date."

Edgeworth flipped it over and squinted at it. (Maybe he _did_ need glasses.) "20… 51?"

"They said they're from the year 2054," Wright explained breathlessly.

"You'd think that they would claim to be from the year on the nickel itself," Edgeworth said dryly, handing it back to Wright. Wright shrugged. "And how does counterfeit coinage prove anything?"

"It doesn't seem counterfeit to me," Wright said, inspecting the coin again. "And how many coins from this exact year do _you_ have?"

"I don't use cash."

Wright dug in his pockets for a moment, then pulled out a few coins. "2017," he read, carefully flipping them over on his palm, "2011… 2018, 2009, 2015… ooh, 1999. But no 2019's."

"I get it," Edgeworth sighed, "but it'll take more than a little disc of zinc and copper to convince me."

"That's not all, though," Wright said, returning to his pacing, "for one thing, all of them - all of their behavior is extremely odd-"

"The same could be said of you."

"-and it might be kind of a longshot, but I think two of them are actually von Karmas."

Edgeworth raised his eyebrows. "Wright, start over. There's three of them, correct?"

Wright nodded absently. "A tall brunette in a lab coat and a funny bracelet, and two teenagers who at least dress like von Karmas. You know," he added with a glance at Edgeworth's suit, "frilly. The boy's even got a cravat." He paused. "Although his sister's German accent seemed pretty… affected. At least she didn't throw random German words into the conversation when she was talking with the other time-travelers."

Edgeworth raised an eyebrow. "Wright, there's only four living von Karmas right now."

"Not including you," Wright said, stopping his pacing, "Manfred von Karma, who might as well be dead; his older daughter, and her daughter; and Franziska."

"What, do you think the 'time-travelers' might be the next generation of von Karmas?"

"That makes sense, right?" Wright looked askance at Edgeworth. "…I can't imagine Franziska reproducing. Whatever happened to her niece's father?"

"Dead," Edgeworth said simply, "Eva's not likely to remarry, either."

"And if she's already got a what - nine-year-old…? kid already," Wright mumbled, rubbing his chin in thought, "and these two are from 2054… they're a little young for her, then." He blinked. "Alois' hair is the exact same color as Franziska's, though. Doesn't that mean something?"

Edgeworth frowned. "I suppose she could want to carry on the von Karma bloodline… in the future," he added, almost despite himself. Franziska was not quite twenty, after all, and children were very, very far off her radar for the time being.

"Is it bad that I'm wondering who the father is?"

"No. …just for the sake of argument, what does the alleged daughter look like?"

"Short. High cheekbones." He paused. "Blonde."

"Shi-Long Lang?" Edgeworth guessed.

Wright shrugged. "Don't know who that is. Oh - light blue eyes, if that helps."

Edgeworth shook his head. Neither Franziska's nor Lang's eyes were blue. _Wait_ , he thought, suddenly irritated, _why am I giving this so much thought?_ "What about the other girl with them? The brunette?"

"Absolutely no idea," Wright said with a hollow laugh, "if I had to say she looked like someone, I'd say Ema, but other than that… that might just be the lab coat, though - anyway, the other two seem almost - scared of her."

"Scared of her?"

"She certainly seems to be in charge."

Edgeworth looked up at the partially-open window (… _it's_ April, _for heaven's sake_ ), emblazoned with "Wright and Co. Law Offices" in slightly crooked white letters. There was a light on, but from the street level it wasn't as though he could see inside. "Wright," he said slowly, "I'm still not exactly inclined to believe anyone's explanations of time travel, no matter who they resemble. I'd like to talk to them, if that'd be alright."

"Oh, it's more than alright," Wright said quickly, "I called you because I had no idea what to do with them."

"A cross-examination is always a good place to start," Edgeworth said, heading up the stairs.

* * *

 **A/N: Here's the Miguel you were promised in the summary. Not that any of you probably care about him at this point - he was one of the last characters introduced in JvKG:AA, after all! Since he got probably the least screentime out of any major character in that fic, I'm giving him the characterization he deserves in this one (or at least I'm trying to). I'm also going to come right out and tell you here that if you expected a lot of Diego Armando, you're going to be disappointed. The fic's kind of about him, but he only physically shows up in one more scene after this. Sorry! You get Phoenix and Edgeworth instead!**


	3. Chapter 3

_January 16 (2054), 7:15 PM, Criminal Affairs Department, Forensics Lab #3_

Unfortunately, the " _someone_ at the forensics department" turned out to be the perpetually hapless Ace Gumshoe, who was only here so late because he was cleaning …something up. Miguel had been expecting Watson's mother, Ema Skye, to be there, although in retrospect he wasn't sure if informing her that her daughter had vanished into thin air was a good idea at the moment. It was for the same reasons that it was probably a good thing that Detective Noir wasn't here, either. Not that he was particularly expecting her, though. The case she had been working on had been resolved with a guilty verdict this morning.

"Hey, Ace," Miguel said, hovering in the doorway lest he step into Ace's bad luck aura, "I need to borrow some fingerprinting powder."

"Sure, no problem, pal," Ace said, picking up a container of aluminum powder and making to toss it at Miguel, then pausing and sheepishly walking it over. Miguel gave him a reassuring smile. He, for one, didn't want to go home in a cloud of clinging white dust. "What do you need it for? Can't be for a case, otherwise you could just wait until tomorrow, pal."

"Aw, you know I don't like working on Saturdays," Miguel said cheerfully, carefully laying out the photocopy on the counter. He hoped his own fingerprints wouldn't interfere too much… there was no point in kicking himself over that, though. How was he supposed to know it wasn't just some random piece of litter?

Ace went back to mopping the floor, humming tunelessly for a minute before asking, "How's Maria holding up, pal?"

"She's fine," Miguel said, dusting the paper, "aside from the chronic migraines, anyway, but she needs a surprisingly little amount of physical therapy considering how much brain damage she took."

"I know," Ace said with a faint trace of wistfulness.

Miguel glanced over his shoulder at him. "What, were you hoping that she told me more about how she's doing than however much she told you?" Ace nodded. "C'mon, Ace. You know she doesn't talk much about her problems."

"Yeah, I know that too, pal," Ace said, "I'm surprised she told me anything."

"…you know she still cares for you."

Ace didn't say anything, just pushed his mop. Miguel couldn't tell if he was brooding or simply lost in thought. He shrugged and turned back to his single piece of evidence, carefully blowing off the fingerprint powder. Ace might be a quiet guy, but him being this serious wasn't something Miguel was exactly used to. And besides, it wasn't really his place to try and push him and Maria back together, was it? Even if they had seemed so happy together before the whole QLF thing… even if, even back then, it had still been obnoxiously on-and-off, since both of them were too worried about losing what they had to try and go for anything more.

But Miguel's job description was 'public prosecutor', not 'matchmaker', and right now it could be said to be 'inspector'. Setting his sister's love life aside, he checked the fingerprints against the database. Hmm… those were his, and those too… _here we go_ , he thought. Match found: Watson Justice.

Miguel frowned at the results. He guessed it was possible that all three of them had handled the paper at some point, and the only reason why Watson's fingerprints had showed up was because she was the only one who didn't wear gloves as just part of their normal outfit. Nothing suspicious about that. _Well_ …

"Ace, have you been here all day?" Miguel said.

"More or less," Ace replied, "I was having a late lunch when you stopped by, though, pal."

"Oh." Pause. "How'd you know I stopped by? I was only here for maybe twenty minutes."

Ace shrugged. "I ran into Watson on the way out. She mentioned that you'd just been here."

Miguel looked down at the aluminum-covered photocopy. "…in what context, exactly?"

"Did something happen, pal?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out."

Ace blinked at him, before standing up straight and saying in a Testimony: The Facts of the Case voice, "she came in here around 3:45 to hang out with some of her scientist friends. She was still here when I left for lunch at 4:00, and when I came back around 4:30, she was leaving. We met in the hallway and I asked what she was up to. She said that she was just checking out some evidence that you had dropped off."

"Hold it!" Miguel said, immediately dropping into cross-examination mode, "did she say why she was checking out the 'evidence'?"

"She said it had something to do with a case she was on, pal."

"Were those her exact words?" he pressed.

"N-No, pal, I don't think so. I think she actually said it had something to do with 'something' she was 'working on'."

"I see," Miguel said, nodding to himself, "I can see how you would think that has something to do with a case, except," he pointed his ubiquitous coffee mug at Ace, "Wat has yet to get her attorney's badge and is notorious for refusing to work as a co-counsel or investigation partner! The only case she's ever really handled was the one last month!"

Ace gasped. "Then what was she checking out your evidence for, pal?"

Miguel took a swig of coffee, then swilled it, smirking in thought. "Don't know yet," he said at length, "I was just looking into a rather interesting clerical error from 35 years ago. It had nothing to do with anything, especially Wat."

"Hmm," Ace said, looking down at his mop. "She seemed to be in a bit of a hurry, pal, so she didn't stick around to talk to me. I don't know what she was up to." He glanced at Miguel, slightly nervous. "She wasn't doing anything… bad, was she?"

Miguel opened his mouth to answer in the negative, but then closed it again. Sure, he _knew_ Watson (or at least knew her when she was a freshman and sophomore), and believed she was a good person, but after that trial last month… good person she may be, she _was_ effectively an accomplice to attempted murder - blackmailed, of course, but it had happened nonetheless. And word had never reached Miguel as to if the blackmail incident had been resolved or even fully investigated.

"Miguel?"

He looked back at Ace, snapped out of his reverie. "No, she wasn't doing anything bad," he said with an overconfident grin, "just sticking her nose where it doesn't belong. You know how she is." Ace just shrugged. "I just need to make sure that…" he trailed off. Ares was still awaiting trial - his charges had gotten all muddled, presumably because Maria was refusing to press charges and Alois was indecisive about if he was going to press charges either - and the detention center didn't do nearly as much to limit access to the outside as a proper prison did. Was Watson _still_ being blackmailed?

And did it have something to do with her disappearance?

"Did something happen, pal?"

Miguel just drank his coffee, trying not to let Ace see how serious his face had gotten. He knew people got uncomfortable when he was like this, since he was the smug type who usually smiled and joked and flirted. "Right now, I can't say," he finally said, "but if they don't show up in the next 22 hours…" he smiled at himself. Two and a half hours - probably less - and he was already thinking about reporting them missing? He was being ridiculous.

Ace looked alarmed, though. "'They', pal?"

"If… you see Wat," Miguel said, carefully placing his photocopy into an evidence bag, then adding it back into his organizer, "be sure to ask her where my kitten and the filly got to, alright?"

Ace nodded. Now _he_ was being uncomfortably serious. Again.

"But seriously, Ace, don't worry about it," Miguel said, stepping back out the door, "no one's in any danger here." _At least, there's no evidence saying they are_ , he added silently as he shut the door on Ace nodding again. _…I really am getting paranoid. That delusional psycho really is getting to me, even behind bars…_

* * *

 _April 12 (2019), 8:15 PM, Wright and Co. Law Offices, Guest bedroom_

The floor was covered in newspapers, all from the weeks of February 7-10th, and a few weeks after that until the press got distracted by a murder at Gatewater Land, which is probably what kicked off its particular (later) reputation of being dangerous, unlucky, and possibly haunted.

"Why are all the trial transcript quotes so _stilted?_ " Jana complained, sitting back and throwing an article away from her. "Look at all these ellipses - it is like they are cutting out every other word someone says."

"They kind of are," Alois pointed out, "they left out a lot of what happened in that trial, so scheint es jedenfalls."

Watson sighed irritably, setting aside her own newspage. "It's a good thing we've seen Mr. Wright's own court record."

"Speak for yourself," Alois grumbled as the door cracked slightly open.

"What are you three up to?" Wright said, peering through the crack.

"…investigation," Jana said flatly.

"Oh," Wright said, and opened the door the rest of the way to reveal Edgeworth standing behind him.

"Is this them?" he said with a curious look at Wright. Wright nodded, and Edgeworth held up a silver-colored coin. "Whose is this?"

Alois raised his hand.

"Where did you get it?"

"It was in my pocket," Alois said simply. His only response to Edgeworth's glare was to bite his lip in thought for a minute before clarifying, "I forgot my debit card at home, so I paid cash for my lunch toda- nun, before we left. It was part of my change back."

"Speaking of today," Jana said, turning to Watson, "what time is it back home?"

"5:45."

"Not what I meant, Watson Justice."

Watson rolled her eyes. "we've been here for four hours and-" she checked her time-tablet thing, as she was lacking a real watch, "forty-nine minutes. So it'd be… about 10:35."

"10:34," Alois corrected.

"10:35," Watson said, pointing at the display that read CURRENT LOCATION (UTC): 12 APRIL 2019 CE | LN α α | 20:20. Underneath it was CURRENT LOCATION (WGS86): 34° 3′ 25.2″ N | 118° 14′ 16.8″ W, and underneath that, in smaller text, was ANCHOR POINT: 17:45 | 16 JAN 2054 CE | 34° 3′ 25.2″ N, 118° 14′ 16.8″ W | DOOR CLOSED. The last two words flashed slowly, mutely.

"What is that?" Edgeworth interrupted.

"…the time-travel device," Watson said, pulling it closer to her chest, suddenly cagey.

"It looks like a tablet computer with a taser welded onto it," Wright observed.

"You're not the first one to make that comparison," Alois chirped.

Edgeworth knelt down to inspect the time device more closely, and although Watson was willing to show him the display again, she did not let go of it. "'Line alpha alpha'?" he said, pointing at LN α α.

"O-Our timeline is set as alpha alpha in this system," Watson stammered, "since we went back in our own timeline, we're still in alpha alpha, which means that any changes here sh-should affect our present, the future." She glanced at the tablet. "There'll be an alternate timeline where we didn't interfere, or failed to interfere, which is the alpha beta timeline. So basically, we're trying to keep the alpha beta timeline from becoming the alpha alpha timeline."

"Fascinating," Edgeworth said, but skepticism practically dripped from his voice.

"No one is asking you to believe her," Jana said, looking away sourly, "in fact, it would be much easier if you did not."

"I am willing to humor you for the sake of this discussion," Edgeworth said, sitting back on his heels. "Why are you here?"

Alois gave Jana a 'you tell him' look, and Jana frowned at Watson for a second before doing so. "Diego Armando…"

"What about him?" Wright said, picking up one of the newspapers on the floor. "Mysterious Prosecutor Revealed As Murderer," its headline blared.

"He was sentenced to death," Jana said as mildly as possible.

Wright's eyebrows shot up, and he looked at Edgeworth. "Did you know that, Edgeworth?"

"No, I didn't," Edgeworth said with a frown, "I would have thought you would have known."

Wright shook his head. "I did manage to visit Armando in the detention center a few times before his trial, but every time I went he harped on about how he was going to represent himself. I visited him in prison afterwards, once, with Maya and Pearls… he didn't mention what his sentence was."

"Well, it was a death sentence," Jana said, shrugging, "but it should not have been."

"True," Edgeworth said, crossing his arms, "it shouldn't have been an option in the first place, though, even if he requested it." He glanced at Wright. "Obviously he didn't argue justifiable homicide, although he probably could have…"

"Do you know who the prosecutor was for his trial?" Wright said, blinking, "I find it kind of hard to believe that any of your colleagues would just leave out all the stuff about protecting Maya."

"Maybe if they were trying to cover up Aunt Dahlia's involvement," Jana said absently.

"I'm pretty sure that's it," Watson said, picking up a tabloid, "nobody in the press - and I do mean _nobody_ \- mentioned the channeling aspect."

"And nobody mentioned Herr Armando's trial," Alois said, flipping through a few legal bulletins from around Valentine's day.

Edgeworth stood up. "I also refuse to believe that any of my colleagues would leave out the channeling aspect - ridiculous and implausible as it may have been, it was a fact of the case nonetheless, and-"

"-prosecutors have a duty to outline the facts of the case," Alois finished with a smile. Edgeworth blinked. "What if the prosecutor wasn't a prosecutor?"

Jana glared at him. "Words mean things, Alois."

"No, I get where he's coming from," Wright said, "Armando's prosecutor wasn't someone from the LA Prosecutorial Offices, right?"

"Ja."

"Implying some sort of conspiracy?" Edgeworth said dryly.

"Makes sense to me," Watson said, engrossed in the tabloid.

Wright looked vaguely around the room before turning to Edgeworth again. "Could you at least, well, check?"

Edgeworth sighed. "I suppose I could look into Armando's trial - at least to see if these three are correct about his sentencing."

"'These three,'" Jana scoffed quietly. Her Uncle Miles was much less rude than his 26-year-old version.

"Entschuldige," Alois said, standing up, "I don't believe we gave you our names. I'm Alois, this is my sister Jana, and this is Watson." He gestured to each in turn.

"…Miles Edgeworth." Cautious. "I suspect that you already knew that." He narrowed his eyes at Wright for a second, then turned back to Alois and asked, "last names?"

"Justice," Watson said casually.

"Von Karma-Gavin," Jana volunteered, then pressed her lips together. _Oops_.

"Called it," Wright said, elbowing Edgeworth. The latter looked troubled. Extremely so.

"… _Gavin?_ "

* * *

 _January 16 (2054), 8:15 PM, Detention Center_

Miguel had swung by WAA on the way to the detention center - well, it couldn't really be called _on_ the way, since it was really _out_ of the way - to confirm that yes, Watson's bike was still parked in front of the building, and no, none of the Wright kids had figured out where the missing trio went. Not even Dahlia knew, and being a ghost she could have searched anywhere she wanted. They were starting to get worried, Maya Valerie especially… not including Dahlia, of course. She didn't seem to care, as was expected.

He did his best to assuage their concerns, but their anxiety only fueled - and justified - his. But what else were they all supposed to think? Thanks to the lazy (and possibly broke) superintendent, the top level of fire escape was hopelessly broken, meaning the only way to get on or off the roof without breaking legs - or worse - was to go through WAA. Which just couldn't be done without someone noticing, especially since the Wrights were all still awake. Even Diego and Maya Valerie's bedtime wasn't this early.

So what else to do but to follow up on his thoughts during his conversation with Ace an hour ago? As a prosecutor, it was well within his right to just walk in and demand to speak to Clay "Ares" Justice, hour of the day be damned.

Which was how they ended up here.

"What do you _want_ ," Ares said with a sneer, the florescent light glinting impassively off of his sunglasses.

"Just want to talk, Ares," Miguel said placatingly, taking a sip of his coffee.

"About what?" Ares grunted.

"Your half-sister."

Ares laughed shortly. "Right, right," he said, "what, you want advice on how to get back together with her? Do high school flings have a statute of limitations that you've passed now?"

"It wasn't like that between us," Miguel said coolly, taking another swig of coffee.

"Sorry, I forgot - you're more into _boys_ , aren't you?"

Miguel rolled his eyes. "I didn't come here for you to show off how little you know me. I came to see if anyone ever bothered following up on Wat's blackmail claim."

"Oh." Ares sank back into his chair, scowling deeply. "Yeah - they followed up on it. A bit."

"A bit?"

"She said I was blackmailing her, but never said with _what_. I said she was lying, but no one ever believed me."

Miguel smirked. "You expect me to believe that? That she's lying?"

Ares shrugged. "No." He looked away. "Who's going to believe me over her? I'm an ex-JD openly obsessed with some sci-fi crap, who already confessed to attempted murder. She's just a poor, innocent little victim, comes from a broken home, selflessly studies to pass the bar exam so she can defend her insane half-brother when all she really wants to do is science." He turned back to Miguel with a sardonic grin. "Sounds good, right?"

"…"

He looked away again. "Too bad she didn't end up with that manipulative homme fatal from the Kurain Caverns case. They suit each other, probably more that he realized."

"So you're saying…" Miguel said slowly.

"…that you can't trust Watson Justice?" Ares said, baring his teeth. "Yeah. That's exactly it. She and I _were_ working together on the time-travel project, and _she_ was the one who requested those files that Maria walked in on me stealing. I honestly don't think she cared about what I might have to do to get those files, and I don't believe her when she said she didn't 'realize' she was hiding evidence." He crossed his arms stiffly. "Then she double-crossed me and accused me of blackmailing her so no one would pull up charges against her. And of _course_ everyone fell for it…"

"Duly noted," Miguel said after a brief pause. "Do you think that everyone 'fell for it' because you're delusional, paranoid, and oh, you also have a vested interest in discrediting her?"

Ares ignored Miguel's remark, opting instead to stare at some spot on the ceiling - or at least that was what he looked like he was doing. Most likely, he was watching Miguel from under his sunglasses; Miguel responded by neutrally drinking his coffee. Of _course_ he didn't believe Ares, but something about what he was saying was… well, it was _something_.

"Do you ever wonder what I could be blackmailing her _with?_ " Ares said.

"Does it matter?" Miguel said dryly.

Ares smirked. "Sure. Anyone with a secret big enough that they could hide evidence in a murder - or an assault being treated like a murder - and work with someone like me… well, what kind of secret do you think that is, hmm?" He yawned. "In this day and age, blackmail 'victims' aren't any more innocent than their threateners. Don't you agree, Mr. Prosecutor?"

"Just on principle, no," Miguel said casually.

Ares shot up from his chair with an abrupt clatter, and lunged so close to the glass he was practically pushing his face into it. Miguel leaned back instinctively, startled. "Just _think_ , won't you?" he hissed, his breath fogging up the glass. " _What was I blackmailing her with?_ "

"…the 'statutory grape juice' not-incident?" Miguel said with a half-smile, remembering Miles' comment about Watson's half-brother being their Agent 21.

The weight of Ares' glare could be felt even from behind his menacingly glinting sunglasses, but after a moment, he snarled and sat back down. "Everyone knows about _that_."

"Sorry, but all I'm hearing is, 'Yes, I did blackmail Wat, I'm just crazy enough to think that she deserved it.'"

"We worked together for years," Ares said, "of course I know all her dirty little secrets… just as she knows all mine." His sunglasses flashed. "If you want to say there was blackmail involved, then we were blackmailing each other."

"Mm."

"Of course…" he craned his head over his shoulder to stare down the security camera, then leaned closer to the dividing glass, "now that she's ditched me, I can tell anyone I want…"

"Don't want to hear it," Miguel said, and immediately wondered if he said it a little too fast. "And she didn't ditch you. She's studying to-"

"Only because she thinks she needs me for her time loops. She's obsessed with them, you know."

"I don't." Miguel took another sip in his coffee, then put the mug down. He had been so distracted by Ares' unadulterated crazy that he had allowed it to go cold. Unforgivable! "And I don't want to hear any of whatever secrets of hers you've deluded yourself into thinking you have, alright?"

Ares chuckled. "I'm not trying to give away a secret here, just a warning," he said, "come on, Miguel. Don't I owe you that much for putting you through Hell last month? I'm not _totally_ evil."

"I don't want your warnings," Miguel said, standing up. Yep, definitely too fast. Ares was definitely getting to him.

"Just don't trust Watson. She isn't what she seems to be."

"That's what you think," Miguel said lamely, then signaled to the guard to take Ares back to his cell.

Obediently, the guard moved to escort Ares out, and he stood up without any resistance. Right before he exited the visiting cell, he half-shouted, "And don't think for a minute that she doesn't have anything to do the von Karma-Gavins disappearing!" Then he was gone.

Miguel stood in the empty visiting room for what could have been anywhere from thirty seconds to three hours, shock still. He made it sound like… Watson was _responsible_ for…? _Should I… call him back in?_ No, that was just what he wanted. _What_ does _he want?_ Miguel shook his head. It was pretty obvious that he wasn't going to get anything useful out from under the various layers of nutso that made up Ares.

 _Wait_ , he thought suddenly, _how does he know-?_

And with that, Miguel was running out the room.

* * *

 _January 16, 9:20 PM, Houzuki Discount Apartment Complex, Room #2812_

It was a really good thing that Miguel had hung out with Watson so much while they were both studying at Themis Academy. He'd been a regular part of both the Skye and Justice households, wherever Watson happened to sleep that month, as she was wandering back and forth between her parents like a lost dog… so, he knew that Ema Skye and Apollo Justice both habitually kept spare housekeys tucked away somewhere around their front door. And, as Miguel confirmed when he lifted the welcome mat in front of her apartment, so did Watson.

Hands shaking, he slowly opened the door, half-expecting Watson to be home already, and maybe wielding a _The Thinker_ clock threateningly - but of course that was ridiculous. And morbid. The corner of Miguel's mouth twitched up momentarily as he remembered seeing, on the way here, Watson's bike _still_ parked in front of WAA. She had that thing insured and everything - she wouldn't just leave it behind…

 _And of course there's nothing wrong with this_ , Miguel thought as he flicked on the lights, _I'm her friend, and I'm_ looking _for her. Her apartment would have been a good place to start, anyway…_ It had absolutely nothing to do with the flood of lunacy that Ares had just spouted at him. Nothing whatsoever.

The tiny apartment's furnishings were sparse, making it look deceptively spacious, and the floors were all hardwood - Miguel wondered if this was because Watson had (or at least used to have had) an interest in dance. He looked quickly around the kitchen - did Watson's diet consist entirely of cup noodles? - and the one bathroom, which looked to be the only room in the house that got a regular dusting or wiping-down. Nothing out of the ordinary, other than the fact that she didn't own a TV, which was still pretty not that out of the ordinary. There wasn't much to see here.

Except, of course, for the bedroom. Miguel hadn't looked in there yet; the door was shut, and although it didn't appear to have a lock, he hesitated in front of it. It was one thing to technically commit trespassing because he was searching for his friends, but it was another thing entirely to go into a woman's room without her knowledge. That seemed like an actual violation of privacy…

 _"Don't think for a minute that she doesn't have anything to do with the von Karma-Gavins disappearing!"_

Miguel frowned at the memory. Alright, so he couldn't report them missing yet - as of right now, they'd only been missing for four hours and 30ish minutes. Suspicious circumstances, sure, but… _But how did Ares know they were gone?_ Miguel thought irritably. Everything since he'd gone up to the WAA roof had been nothing but fishy. And even if Watson hadn't done anything wrong, that just meant that she was in trouble too. Potentially.

Maybe he'd find a lead in Watson's room. Mentally apologizing, he pushed open the door-

And his jaw proverbially dropped.

Considering the rest of the house was practical and organized, it was an extra shock to see that Watson's bedroom had practically no room to move - in addition to the room itself being so small that her twin bed almost took up half of it, with the other half being dominated by a single wooden dresser that was low enough to be used as an improvised desk (judging by the slightly broken rolling chair shoved up in front of it), several bookshelves reached from floor to ceiling. The bookshelves were filled with binders and reams of paper, as was every other available surface in the room - including the walls, which also featured yarn and pins connecting various points and ideas together.

"What's this…?" Miguel said to himself, and carefully stepped over to the dresser. He briefly considered opening the drawers to see if they were filled with more paper, but Watson needed _someplace_ to put her clothes, so logic dictated he just skim the spines of the binders on the nearest shelf instead. For the sake of disturbing as little as possible - somehow, he felt like he was being watched - he used his cell phone as a flashlight again.

"Regina Berry incident, witness testimonies Rose through Yogi," Miguel read out loud. "LawyerCon 2028 bombing, news reports… Kurain channeling technique reports, volume eleven…" He looked at the shelf below it. "The Other Branch Family, incident reports 2023 to 2025. Diego Armando interviews, May through July 2019. Iris Wright abduction-slash-murder investigation." He raised his eyebrows. "Detective Airey Verkhovensky dossier, cell phone records."

He moved back over the dresser/desk, frowning and feeling distinctly off-kilter. Very carefully, making sure to leave everything exactly where he found it, almost as thought this were a crime scene, he leafed through the papers on the desk. He brushed past 'Teotihuacan Foundation: known members (December 2053)', 'Huitzilopotchli character profile', and 'Tula Group - known assets (November 2053)'. He carefully shifted aside pages and pages of handwritten notes talking about stable vs. unstable time loops, temporal anomalies, doors, and psychic singularities. He stopped cold when he saw a few papers - obvious photocopies - with QLF headers. He drew away from the desk, almost unconsciously. Proceeding didn't seem… wise.

"But what does all this have to do with my kitten and the filly?" he asked himself quietly. Checking over the desk one last time to make sure everything seemed to be in the same order, he stepped out of the cramped, paper-filled little room as fast as he could without upsetting anything. The neat normality of the rest of the apartment was both relieving and disquieting.

Self-consciously, he felt his cellphone in his pocket. Yes, he had taken pictures… what else could he be expected to do? _This is too weird_ , he thought, trying to rationalize away his guilt. That was why, of course, he ripped a page out of his organizer as soon as he left the apartment, and wrote on it:

"Hey Wat,

"Was looking for you earlier. Heard you had my kitten and the filly with you WAA, but I missed you. Wright kids didn't see you leave. Thought it was odd.

"Just wanted to make sure you were ok.

"Sorry for breaking into your house. You should really leave the key somewhere else. Didn't steal your stuff or snoop around or anything, just stepped in from the cold for a minute, saw you weren't there, left.

"Is that weird?

"— Miguel Fey-Armando (9:45 pm, Fri)"

He taped it to the door and nodded at it once, satisfied that Watson wouldn't think it suspicious, then summoned a calming cup of coffee. While he drank it, he wondered how bad he should feel about lying. But… what was going on here? That was the real problem. It wasn't like collecting information like that was necessarily illegal or immoral or anything. But it was _odd_. And it just seemed to back up what Ares had said about her-

Miguel stopped his train of thought right there. Okay, yeah, Watson was suspicious - but Ares was nothing if not untrustworthy.

All he wanted to know was where she and the von Karma-Gavin siblings had gone… and why?

* * *

 **A/N: Remember how Clay is crazy? Because CLAY IS CRAZY. I just want you, readers, to keep this in mind when you make judgements about Watson. Oh, and in case it wasn't obvious - pay attention to the documents Miguel found in Watson's room. The next few chapters will give you more information about them, of course; with a careful reading of LAL and JvKG:AA, and a little bit of logical deduction, you should be able to guess quite a few important plot points for the whole series! Happy deducting!**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Dear people who haven't played GK2 and don't want spoilers: don't think too hard about the second paragraph of this chapter.**

* * *

 _April 13 (2019), 7:35 AM, High Prosecutor's Office_

"Here are those files you requested, Mr. Edgeworth."

"Thank you, Mr. Debeste. Good luck in court today." Edgeworth sat back with the Misty Fey murder records as his young protégé bowed his thanks (and assurance of finding the truth, of course) and left the room. He thumbed through the files and was immediately disquieted to know that the self-proclaimed time travelers were right, at least, about Armando's sentencing. "Unbelievable," he muttered.

He looked at the prosecutor for that trial and frowned. He didn't recognize the name; as high-ranking as he was, he knew everyone who worked here, from the Chief Prosecutor to that obnoxious trainee who was apparently going to marry Franziska (Edgeworth repressed a shudder and hoped that the self-styled rock star had a brother)… he even occasionally remembered who the Paynes were. So who was this Tauno Tavallinen?

Edgeworth sighed. Another point in the time-traveller's favor, it seemed. He turned to the next casefile, and his eyes immediately narrowed upon seeing how… _edited_ the transcript and court record were. Quite frankly, reading through the transcript, Iris' trial no longer made sense. Entire testimonies were cut out - entire _witnesses_ were cut out, namely one Dahlia Hawthorne. The transcript jumped from point to point without ever brining up what was so special about the Feys and Hazakura temple, and suddenly Godot confessed to the killing and Iris was declared innocent of first-degree murder.

 _Who would dare tamper with the court records?_ Edgeworth gritted his teeth, setting the file back on his desk and glaring at it. Of course, if everything revolving around Hawthorne was erased from public record, no wonder Armando didn't - couldn't - argue justifiable homicide. In this warped version of the case, Misty Fey had never channelled anyone. Maya was never in any real danger, not counting the danger from freezing, since the transcript seemed to imply that Maya was the one found in the Sacred Cave.

Frowning deeply, Edgeworth picked up the last file - Iris' accomplice to murder trial. He knew a bit more about this one; Wright had come complaining to him after Iris rejected his offer to defend her again and make sure she got a fair sentence. She wanted a state-appointed attorney, and the harshest sentence possible. Which was what she got: life in prison. (Mere accomplices didn't get executed.) The trial seemed to have only lasted about 45 minutes, too, if that. Not a surprise, of course, since everything had been clearly outlined during her initial trial - or at least it was before somebody decided to take some white-out to the records - but in conjunction with Armando's clearly rigged case… well, something was up.

Something was rotten in the state of California.

* * *

 _April 13, 8:00 AM, Wright and Co. Law Offices_

Alois would have to remember to never share a room with girls ever again. Tomorrow night he would sleep on the couch in the lobby.

There were also the little things that came with time travel that they hadn't thought through - namely, no one thought to bring, say, toothbrushes. It had taken them pooling what little money they had on them and then twenty minutes of Watson panhandling last night before they had enough pre-2020 cash to buy some at the corner store. It was a bit of a close call when some random cop started getting a bit too curious about Watson… although that might have just been because it was late.

Feeling distinctly put out, mostly due to his rumpled clothes thanks to the fact that all his pajamas were still in 2054, Alois checked the calendar on Wright's desk and frowned. He knew that tomorrow morning, newspapers all around the county would be pushing the story of the famed Magnifi Gramarye's murder and the apparent gross security breach at Los Angeles Central Hospital.

"Watson, glaubst du…" Alois started, sticking his head into the guest bedroom, where Watson and Jana had both returned to trying to figure out who put a gag order on the courts, this time focusing on tabloids and whatever underground publications they could get their hands on, "what would happen if we told Onkel Wright about Onkel Kristoph and the Gramarye trial ahead of time?"

"Don't," Watson said, leafing through a 'All-Time Hottest Couples of the LA Courts' Valentine's day issue of Trial Error Magazine, presumably in the hopes that Mia Fey/Diego Armando would be in there.

"He meant hypothetically," Jana said from behind her own earlier issue of Trial Error.

"Oh," Watson said, putting the magazine down, "well, since he'd probably make a note to himself not to take that case, most likely it would just create an alternate timeline. We can call it alpha gamma," she added, mostly to herself.

Alois sat down in front of them. "Why does it make an alternate timeline?"

"Hmm?"

"Sie gehört mir," he said, "if Onkel Wright doesn't get disbarred, that makes an alternate timeline. If Herr Armando's sentence is appealed, that's part of our timeline. How does that make sense?"

"Maybe our timeline is an alternate timeline to begin with," Jana offered.

Watson didn't say anything for a few seconds, then said simply, "Mr. Armando's appeal already happened in our timeline."

"Because of Jana."

"The timeline always corrects itself," Watson said weakly, picking Trial Error back up.

Jana tilted her head questioningly. "Is our interference not what needs to be corrected?" she scoffed.

"It's more like…" Watson gesticulated vaguely, "we _are_ the corrections."

Alois tilted his head now. Jana threw her magazine down angrily. "What does that mean?" she demanded.

"How much do you know?" Alois added, narrowing his eyes slightly.

"It's just a hypothesis I have," Watson said defensively, holding Trial Error in front of her like a shield, "Mr. Armando's sentencing seems like a cluster of temporal anomalies to me. If we went back in time and fixed it and it made a stable time loop instead of an alternate timeline," she cleared her throat, "that seems to indicate that… there were other time-travelers involved in his initial sentencing."

Jana and Alois looked at each other. "Aber," Alois said slowly, "you showed us the appeal records - if anyone actually went back and checked them in our time, they'd think it was extremely verdächtig. Miguel certainly did."

"Yet when I filed for an appeal, they would have had to check the records for Diego Armando's initial trial," Jana said, "they were apparently completely normal." While this was Alois' first time hearing something like this, he supposed that did explain why the procedures were so lax that Jana got away with using an ID number that hadn't been registered yet… the courts here had never been known for their stringency, but suspicious records on file would probably change that up.

"I didn't say a time-traveller was _directly_ involved in the trial," Watson was saying, shrugging, "and even if they were, as long as they stay in this time, the records won't change, since they won't do that until the time-traveller leaves. So, they could have moved to this era permanently… and if that was what happened, no wonder the timeline correcting itself has to come in the form of, well, us."

Alois glanced at Jana. This sounded a little too well thought out to be just an off-the-cuff hypothesis, no matter how casually Watson was trying to play it off. Jana's mouth drew into a grim line; apparently she was thinking the same thing.

"What business would a time-traveller have covering up the involvement of channeling?" Jana said skeptically.

"To say nothing of how much power this would have taken to pull off, ja?" Alois added, grabbing a tabloid claiming to air out all of Armando's dirty laundry, "I would have guessed that the government is behind this."

"Perhaps… a large organization, affiliated with the government - or at least working with them?" Watson said, phrasing it like a guess but with a forced nonchalance that made it sound like anything but.

Jana raised her eyebrow silently at Watson, then ignored her in favor of a special channeling issue of Oh! Cult. Judging by the cover, they were only recapping public information about the Feys purely because a murder happened to take place at Hazakura Temple.

"It's not as though the anomalies end there," Watson continued, still nonchalantly. "You know we don't have to worry about the life in prison sentence because he'll be pardoned about ten years from now…"

"What does Regina Berry have to do with time-travel?" Alois said, playing with his hair in thought.

Watson sighed. "You know Mr. Wright has the best records on the Regina Berry incident," she said, directing her chiding comment towards Jana. Jana just grunted in response. "Well, I don't blame you for not knowing," Watson said, turning back to Alois, "since I'm sure the records at the prosecutorial offices are probably about as bad as the records for the Hazakura incident."

"…Fräulein Berry was a powerful psychic, ja?" Alois said. He had never looked at any files on it, but just about every adult in his life had been caught up in it, so he'd heard a tidbit about it every so often for the past 17 years. "She's the reason court is no longer televised."

Watson nodded. "You should ask someone about the specifics sometime," she said, "maybe one of the Feys, since a lot of people involved in it - your parents, for example - chose to write it off later in life. Anyway, the big thing about the Regina Berry incident was the fact that she turned into a star."

"Ein Stern?"

"That is ludicrous," Jana mumbled from behind Oh! Cult.

"That's what happened," Watson said, "and as a result of this, spacetime started to collapse around her." She sat back a bit, stretching her arms. "It's thanks to that that time-travel is possible in the first place - see, we're not really traveling through _time_ , per se, it's more like we're… slipping through the cracks made on June third, 2028." She stared up at the ceiling for a minute before commenting, "as far as I can tell, we can only visit timelines that had, at some point, Regina Berry's breakdown."

She caught Alois' confused expression, but misinterpreted it. "That's what the first letter in my line classification system means," Watson explained, absent-mindedly picking at her lab coat, "if the cracks in time come from the Regina Berry incident, then it's an alpha whatever timeline. If they come from her having a private turn-into-a-star breakdown where she's _not_ trying to take over the world, that would be, say, a beta whatever timeline, or some other letter, depending on the exact circumstances around it. So as an example, let's say that the delta timeline has Ms. Berry being born in 1870… delta alpha would be the 'normal' one, which right now I'm using to mean the 'corrected' timeline with either stable time loops or just no interference from time-travelers at all. Delta beta would be one incident away from delta alpha, delta gamma would be another incident away from delta alpha… of course, the Greek alphabet only has 24 letters, and obviously there are more timelines than that, but for simplicity's sake, and the fact that there is a certain amount of flux to be expected, even with stable time loops…"

"Do _you_ know what she is going on about?" Jana asked Alois.

Alois shrugged. "It kind of makes me wish I had watched more Star Trek when we were younger."

* * *

 _April 13, 8:30 AM, Wright and Co. Law Offices_

It wasn't wrong to eavesdrop in your own home, right? Because that was exactly what Phoenix had spent the last twenty minutes doing, and now he was thoroughly confused. Not because Watson was apparently doing her best impression of a sci-fi exposition fairy - he'd seen enough episodes of Doctor Who to keep up with that, not that Watson didn't seem like the poster child for unreliable expositors anyway.

No, it was the stuff about Regina Berry he was worried about! What was this nonsense about her trying to take over the world? She was only, what, seventeen? And she certainly didn't seem like the type!

Huffing, Phoenix stepped back out into his office, pulling the note he had written while on the phone with Edgeworth earlier out of his pocket. While he was still refusing to accept the idea of time-travel, he did confirm that there was apparently some sort of conspiracy going on. Phoenix wondered if he should pass this on to Watson, Alois, and Jana or not; somehow, he suspected they already knew.

What worried him was Watson's comment about records changing when the time-travelers left. No matter what Edgeworth said to the contrary, Phoenix wasn't an idiot: he knew the implications here. Records being mysteriously changed after interlopers returned to their own times certainly answered the age-old question of "If time-travel exists, where are all the time-travelers?" …or at least one part of it. Because even if records were changed, people would still know about these unsubtle time-travelers because, well, they were _obviously_ from the future. Alois had spent an hour and a half yesterday actively _convincing_ Phoenix he was from the future. Conclusion? People who interacted with time-travelers had their memories wiped somehow.

Suddenly feeling very nervous, Phoenix looked out the window. He half-expected the men in black to come strolling down the street, nueralyzers in hand. And yes, he wanted to tell himself he was being paranoid and letting his imagination get away from him, but instead he just thought, _Should I call Edgeworth about this?_

He walked down the stairs to the street, still unsure of what exactly he should be doing here. _Maybe I should go talk to Armando_ , he realized as he unchained his bike from the sticker-encrusted rack. _I should definitely go talk to Armando_ , he nodded to himself as he pedaled in the direction of the detention center. Fortunately or unfortunately, traffic was rather light (at least on the bike paths) so he hadn't had much time to think about what exactly he should talk to him about by the time he got there.

When Armando walked into the visiting room, holding his ubiquitous mug of coffee (…why did they allow him to have that in prison?), he passed up a normal greeting in favor of a brief nod of acknowledgement and a "No Maya and Pearly this time?"

"They went back to Kurain village," Phoenix explained.

"Why are you visiting me?" Armando cut right to it with a pointed slurp of coffee.

"I… heard about your appeal trial. It's on Monday, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"And I heard that you had to be convinced to appeal," Phoenix said cautiously.

Armando seemed to gaze at him levelly for a moment before saying, "How much do you know, Wright?"

"Probably more than I'm supposed to."

Armando nodded. "I imagine that's exactly why I stood trial in a kangaroo court." Phoenix frowned, but Armando continued, "that's why you're here, isn't it?"

"Why would someone want to cover up Dahlia's involvement?"

Armando took a long swig of coffee before responding. "I can only assume that letting the dead testify in court threatened some powerful people."

"Government powerful or generic large evil organization powerful?" Phoenix said, leaning forward a bit.

"No clue. Not my place to think about these things anymore."

Phoenix glowered at Armando for a second before pulling his phone-notes out of his pocket again. "Was the prosecutor really someone who didn't work with the LAPD?" He squinted at the probably-misspelled name. "Taono Tavaleenen?"

"Ah, Tauno Tavallinen." Armando snorted into his coffee. "No, I don't think he was one of my former colleagues, but you couldn't blame me for forgetting him if he was. His only character trait was the fact that he didn't have any. He was so nondescript that looking at him was like looking at a blank wall; no matter what you do, your eyes always slide away, looking for something more interesting…"

"I… see," Phoenix said, blinking, "and… you didn't argue against this?"

"Was there a point?"

"If there wasn't one, why did you let Watson and Jana convince you to appeal?"

There was silence in the visitor's room for almost a full minute. "…she talked about families," he said at length.

"Who did?"

"Jana. She talked about families," Armando said, "you've obviously talked to her - didn't she call you 'Unkle Vright'?"

Was it really necessary to imitate a 15-year-old girl's voice? "…yes?"

"Looks like you get in on this family stuff in the future too, Wright. You get a niece."

"And a nephew," Phoenix added absently. Armando took an impassive swig of coffee. "But- you?"

"Did you know that spirit channelers can act as surrogates for dead mothers?"

"No." Phoenix blinked. "I've never heard of anything like that."

"Apparently it's not common."

"No kidding."

"Well," Armando said, putting his mug on the little divider-desk, "Little Miss Attorney-from-the-future tells me I'll be out of here in ten years." He laughed once. "All she's planning on doing is getting a reduction to life in prison instead of execution. But I don't care either way, Wright. Whether I die tomorrow or in 35 years with two grown children, I don't care."

Phoenix was getting kind of depressed. "So I guess you're not worried about… what kind of consequences this might have."

"I don't buy into conspiracies, Wright."

"Even after your 'kangaroo court' trial?"

"Execution's good enough for someone like me. As I said…"

"…you don't really care," Phoenix sighed, sitting back in his chair.

"Why do you?"

Phoenix rubbed his chin in thought. "Well… a couple of kids from the 2050s show up on my doorstep… wouldn't you be curious, too?"

"Or," Armando said, leaning forward, "are you still trying to save me?" He smirked momentarily before sitting back again. "Listen to Mia when she talks to you, Wright. You're done with me. Move on with your life."

"A-Armando…"

* * *

 _January 16 (2054), 10:10 PM, Wright Anything Agency_

"And you tried calling their cell phones," Edgeworth said over a cup of tea.

"Of course I did - when I was on my way to the CAD," Miguel said shortly. He was seated with Edgeworth at the kitchen table, intently examining the pictures from Watson's apartment. "Both my kitten and the filly are apparently out of range, and I don't even _have_ Wat's cell number."

"No one does," Wright commented, placing a mug of coffee by Miguel before sitting next to Edgeworth with his own coffee. "Apollo says he isn't even sure she owns a phone anymore."

"That is troublesome, though," Edgeworth said, his brow furrowing even more than it already was. "there aren't many places in Los Angeles where they could be out of service range."

"Valerie said they were last seen at five," Wright said, drumming his fingers on the table. "They could be in Arizona by now for all we know. Hypothetically," he added with a worried frown.

"That's assuming they disappeared right after they went up to the roof," Edgeworth said.

"But how did they get _off_ the roof?" Wright grumbled. "The fire escape is broken, and it's pretty much impossible to pass through the Agency without being noticed."

"That's the only real suspicious point," Edgeworth said to Miguel, "Jana and Alois are both old enough to make rational decisions, they were with a trustworthy adult, there were no signs of violence, no ransom note, no indicators that this was a kidnapping or that there was an accident… and they've only been gone for five hours."

"I know," Miguel growled. "But I… well, I don't really know about Wat being trustworthy anymore." He frowned at his picture of Huitzilopotchli's character profile. Age: unknown, gender: male, blood type: O-, IQ: ~190; suspected god complex, Orestes complex, severe Perseus complex, possible Cain complex.

Wright raised his eyebrows. "Where did you get that idea?"

Miguel fidgeted in his seat and took a sip of coffee before answering. "I went to talk to Ares. I was wondering if his alleged blackmailing had anything to do with…"

"Clay isn't exactly…" Wright searched for a word. "Sane."

"He is delusional, paranoid, and has a vested interest in discrediting Watson," Edgeworth said evenly.

Miguel resisted the urge to roll his eyes at his superior. Instead he said, "I know," and sideswiped to a photo of a list of the known members of the Tula Group, whatever that was. "…do either of you happen to know who Tauno Tavallinen is?"

Wright and Edgeworth exchanged a look. "Somehow," Wright said slowly, "that sounds familiar. Wasn't… wasn't he a prosecutor?"

Edgeworth crossed his arms, tapping one finger pensively. "That sounds right, but…"

"I don't think I ever met him."

"I'm sure I must have, if he was a prosecutor. I just can't seem to remember him."

"Maybe he was like the - what were their names again? the Payne brothers. You know, lacking presence."

"I suppose," Edgeworth said, adjusting his glasses and looking troubled. Miguel raised his eyebrows at the whole exchange. "Fey, what does this have to do with the disappearances?"

Miguel stared down at the Tula Group list. Tauno Tavallinen, Piet Pompies, Jan Novák, Jean Dupont, Chichiko Bendeliani, Janina Jonienė, Kovács János, Sean O'Rudai, Mario Rossi, Marte Kirkerud… was it just him, or did this read like the Wikipedia list of placeholder names by language? He switched to the Teotihuacan Foundation page and saw a slew of similar names. Either that, or Janina Jonienė, Jan Novák, and Sean O'Rudai worked for both groups. Implying that the two groups were allies of some sort?

Should he _really_ tell Wright and Edgeworth what he was doing with these pictures?

Miguel shook his head. "I doubt he has anything to do with the disappearances," he said carefully. The _circumstances_ behind it, sure, maybe, but the fact that Alois, Jana, and Watson had dropped off the face of the earth? Miguel didn't see much of a connection… meaning Wright wouldn't be seeing any psyche-locks. And Edgeworth and Wright both trusted him enough not to press him about why he was studying his cell phone screen. Still, he couldn't help but watch them warily over the rim of his coffee cup. He'd clearly stumbled on some kind of secret when he broke into Watson's apartment - no, when he went to talk to Ares… was keeping it hidden the right thing to do?

* * *

 _April 13 (2019), 12:00 PM, Eldoon's Noodles_

"Is there even a purpose to an investigation at this point?" Jana grumbled as she poked at the overly-salty noodles bought with the rest of last night's beggar money.

"Not for the trial," Alois said, shrugging. They both eyed Watson, who was sitting on the curb a bit away from them, silently finishing her own noodles.

"There is still a whole day until the trial," Jana complained.

"Ja, but when we get back, it'll be like only fifteen minutes have passed," he said, then added, "maybe."

"I hope so." Jana paused to eat some of her lunch. "Even if only fifteen minutes pass, for those fifteen minutes it will be like we no longer exist at all…"

"Hoffentlich, no one will even notice that we're gone," Alois said lightly.

"Which is a very good thing," Watson said abruptly, standing up and handing her empty bowl to the current Eldoon, "I shouldn't have to tell you this, but we really don't want anyone from our time investigating us."

Jana scowled at her. If she hadn't had a bowlful of noodles and borderline-caustic broth on her lap, she would have hit Watson with her riding crop. "It is not as though we are doing anything illegal."

"No, we're not, but this isn't the sort of thing you can go around telling everyone about. There are larger forces at work here than you understand," Watson said ominously, then turned around. "I need to go somewhere. I'll be back by… let's say three o'clock, give or take 2.25 hours." She walked off without another word.

Jana and Alois sat in silence for a few minutes; it was almost like they were waiting to see if Watson would come back. " _Where do you think she's going?_ " Alois finally asked in German, with a cautious look around.

" _Does it matter?_ "

" _You know she's been acting awfully suspicious since… well, since my trial last month, I guess._ "

Jana frowned and stared into her noodles. " _I know. But what can we do about it?_ "

" _Maybe investigate Wat in addition to Mr. Armando?_ " Alois said with a shrug.

" _How are we supposed to do that?_ " Jana scoffed, " _that would be hard enough to do in_ our _time, let alone now._ "

" _I know, I know_ ," Alois said, playing with his hair, " _it's just… I don't know. You don't really think we're in danger, do you?_ "

Jana shook her head. " _It might be a strange situation, but I don't think… I mean, all I'm doing is convincing a judge to slightly reduce Diego Armando's sentence. All you're doing is keeping Uncle Wright off our backs._ "

Alois chuckled. " _True. And Uncle Wright isn't exactly known for being dangerous -_ attracting _danger, maybe, but we should be safe at his office._ "

There was a comfortable pause as they both ate their noodles. But something still wasn't sitting right with Jana. " _What exactly are we safe_ from _?_ "

Alois looked down the street in the same direction where Watson had left. " _I don't want to say 'safe from her'_ ," he said slowly, " _maybe safe from the same thing that got Mr. Armando on death row. You know what she said_ ," he paused, apparently translating Watson's words in his head, " _'_ _a large organization, affiliated with the government - or at least working with them.'_ "

Jana raised her eyebrows. " _You think she was serious about that?_ "

" _Does she joke around?_ "

" _It could have been just a guess…_ "

Alois shook his head. " _Wat's not exactly a good liar. She's no good at hiding things when she talks… it's so obvious that she knows way more than she's letting on._ "

" _Definitely,_ " Jana sighed. " _What are we gonna do about that?_ "

" _Make it through the appeal trial and go home,_ " Alois said with a firm nod. " _I don't really believe what she said about us being 'regular time-travelers'._ "

" _There's no way she was lying about_ that _,_ " Jana pointed out, " _you just pointed out that she's an awful liar, yet…_ "

" _I don't want to time travel_ ," Alois said. " _There're too many uncertainties… and I just don't feel safe._ "

Jana sighed again, nodding. She knew what he meant about that, even if she couldn't be sure if creeping apprehension was just an aftereffect of getting shoved through cracks in spacetime, or if it was because Watson had kind of revealed that she was about as insane as her half-brother, and possibly just as dangerous - and yet they had no choice but to rely on Watson. She had the-

" _Alois, what would happen if we stole the time-travel device thing and just sent ourselves back to our time?_ "

" _What, and ditch Mr. Armando?_ "

Jana waved her hand imperiously. " _No, no, we could skip to his appeal trial, get that done in a half-hour, and then go home. What would happen if we just did that?_ "

Alois gave Jana a disapproving look. " _Are you proposing we ditch Wat in the past?_ "

" _Maybe,_ " Jana said, poking at her noodles again, " _I'm sure she could find her own way back to 2054, since I'm sure she has something to do with the 'large organization'. Why else would she know about them? How else could she develop a time-travel device at age 21?_ "

" _We're the last people who should accuse people of getting outside help just because of their age,_ " Alois pointed out. " _Besides, we'd have no way of guaranteeing that Wat_ could _get back on her own if we steal the device. And even if she did, don't you think she'd be mad?_ "

" _I know,_ " Jana said sullenly, scraping her boot against the gutter. " _But I want to go home, Alois_."

" _I know, little sister,_ " Alois said, smiling kindly. " _Just two more days, and then it'll be like this never happened._ "

* * *

 **Why yes, yes I AM the type of person who criticizes time-travel mechanics in sci-fi.**

 **BTW, I had to make up the Perseus complex. But with a little knowledge of Greek mythology, the fact that it didn't previously exist, and the mention of the Orestes complex, you should be able to figure out what it is. Don't get it? Just wait 'til Huitzilopotchli is introduced in a later fic. You'll know then!**


	5. Chapter 5

_April 14 (2019), 3:00 AM, Wright and Co. Law Offices, Phoenix Wright's Bedroom_

Thunk.

Click.

The sound of a window opening, and suddenly the yellowish light from the streetlamp in the alley outside the window was cut into by the silhouette of a lean 19-year-old girl.

"Who are you?" Phoenix squeaked, sitting bolt upright and yanking the blanket up to his chest. He fumbled with the lamp for a second, trying to turn it on without taking his eyes off of the window intruder, and eventually succeeded.

The girl didn't say anything, just scrutinized Phoenix. Irritated and nervous, Phoenix scrutinized her in return. There was something _familiar_ about her complexion and the lines of her face, not to mention her hair had a peculiar spiky quality to it despite the long braid it was pulled back into at the nape of her neck. She was wearing pink and purple and knee-high white boots and there was a faintly glowing green magatama around her neck. That… was weird.

"Who are you?" Phoenix repeated. This was just too strange.

"Are they in the guest bedroom?" she said. Phoenix raised his eyebrows - not just because of the question, but because her voice was so… so familiar, even though he was very sure he'd never heard it before.

"Are who in the guest bedroom?" Phoenix said.

"Bluffing won't work on me," the girl said with a little smile.

"Dang."

She gracefully jumped down from the window sill and gave Phoenix another once-over. "It's 2019, right? You're 26?"

Phoenix made a face. "Are you another time-traveller?"

She laughed briefly. _Definitely_ familiar - almost like… like… "I'm from the year 2057."

"…the other ones are three years ahead of you."

"I know," the girl said, rolling her eyes. "Just to clarify: your interloper guests are Alois von Karma-Gavin, age 17; Jana von Karma-Gavin, age 15; and Watson Justice, age 21?"

Phoenix nodded cautiously. With another half-smile, the girl strolled casually over to the door, opened it, and stepped out into the hallway - somehow avoiding the creaky floorboard right outside of Phoenix's door. Alarmed, Phoenix jumped up and followed her out, just in time to see her silently open the door to the guest bedroom.

"What are you doing?" Phoenix hissed at her, picking his way across the hallway to stand right behind her.

"Just checking," she said quietly, and that did seem to be all she was doing: staring into the guest bedroom. Jana was gracelessly crumpled on the bed with all the sheets kicked off, and Watson was curled up on the floor, snoring and using her lab coat as a blanket. "Where's Alois?"

Phoenix didn't answer, but the girl in pink didn't wait for him to. She walked quickly to Phoenix's office, again somehow avoiding all the creaky floorboards - it was weird enough when Jana did that, but this girl seemed even more at home here than she did, heck, than _Phoenix_ did - and nonchalantly passing through the office into the lobby, where she and Phoenix found Alois sleeping on the couch, with a blanket and pillow clearly appropriated from the guest bedroom.

She nodded once at Alois, her disapproving expression undercutting the gesture, and turned back to Phoenix. "Did they tell you when they're going to leave?"

"I assume after Armando's retrial," Phoenix said.

"I see," she said, and touched her chin in thought, "is there one of them that talks to you more than the others?"

"Alois," Phoenix said, remembering the whole nickel thing.

The girl glanced at Alois, then returned her gaze to Phoenix. Geez - who did she remind him of? Definitely someone… "And Watson?"

"What about her?"

She tensed slightly, her eyes darting in the direction of the guest bedroom, then again returning to Phoenix. "Has she tried to… convince you of anything?"

Phoenix frowned. "She sort of explained a bit about time-travel to Edgeworth, but that was about it."

The girl scowled at the mention of Edgeworth, but almost immediately returned to her previous, carefully inscrutable expression. "Well, I'd take everything she says with a grain of salt if I were you."

"She's untrustworthy?"

"She could be worse," she said, with a slight snarl, "but yes - I could probably throw her farther than I trust her." Just the way she held herself had Phoenix convinced that she could throw Watson pretty far, even if she did seem to be slightly shorter than her.

"Oh," Phoenix said, "what about the fact that she seems to be kind of in charge of the two younger ones?"

The girl sighed, and even _that_ seemed like he'd seen it somewhere before. "For the time being, they should be fine. The von Karma-Gavins can handle themselves, at least… for the most part, anyway. You shouldn't worry about them." She gave him a sharp look. "In fact, it would have been much preferred if you didn't know about them at all." She turned around and started back for Phoenix's bedroom.

"Hold it, I have a question," Phoenix said quickly, following her, "about time-travel."

"What?"

"Do people who interact with time-travelers really get their memories wiped?"

The girl turned around and gave him an extremely confused and slightly affronted look. "How did you come to that conclusion?"

"Uh… I heard about records being wiped after the time-travelers leave, but I figured that if the people they talked to while they were here still remembered they were from the future, then…"

The girl looked at him blankly for a moment before laughing - a more prolonged sound this time that somehow brought to mind Ivy University. "No, no - no one _wipes_ your memories. You've been watching too many Will Smith movies."

"Then how…?"

"Your brain rejects us. You naturally forget."

"…oh."

She shrugged. "Them's the breaks," she said with a dry trace of humor, "I have to return to 2057 now. You won't remember me in the morning." She turned around and went into Phoenix's room, and was hoisting herself out the window when Phoenix entered behind her.

"Well, if I won't remember in the morning," Phoenix said, trying to ignore how uncomfortable that prospect made him, "can you at least tell me something about yourself?"

She paused on the windowsill. "What?"

"Why are you here? I don't mean what are you doing - I mean, why did you come back in the past to check on those three?"

Phoenix almost thought she wasn't going to answer until she said, "I was ordered to… by the organization I work for."

"Organization?"

She shook her head. "Are you trying to figure out why I'm working for them? I'm just… I guess you could say I'm looking for my mother." She looked over her shoulder at Phoenix - with those hauntingly familiar black eyes… "Any other questions you'd like to forget the answer to?"

"You never told me your name."

Again, there was a long pause where she just stared at the alleyway below her before answering. "My name is Misty."

"…Misty?"

"Detective Misty Wright."

And she leaned back and dropped dramatically out of the window before Phoenix could run after her and demand an explanation from his daughter from the future.

* * *

 _April 14, 7:30 AM, Wright and Co. Law Offices_

"Onkel Wright, who were you talking to last night?" Alois asked over breakfast (which he made - it was the least he could do).

"Who was… what?" Wright said, swallowing his eggs. "I wasn't talking to anyone last night. Or do I talk in my sleep?"

Alois looked askance at him. "Even if you do, I wouldn't have been able to hear you from the lobby. Nein… you were standing right by the couch and talking to someone. You two woke me up."

Wright blinked at him, face blank. "I honestly have no idea what you're talking about, Alois."

"War nicht so wichtig," Alois said curtly, and took a bite of his own eggs. It was obvious what had happened here - Alois, who was from the future, remembered someone that Wright, who belonged in this present, didn't? Clearly another time-traveller, and one who had since left. The real question was whether or not he should tell Watson.

"Good morning, Alois, Uncle Wright," Jana yawned as she walked into the kitchen and helped herself to breakfast. "It does not smell nearly as good as Papa's, Alois."

Alois rolled his eyes and said in German, " _Forget that. Another time-traveler showed up to talk to Uncle Wright last night._ "

Jana almost dropped her plate. " _Another time-traveller?_ "

Alois nodded, ignoring Wright's confused looks back and forth. " _A woman… I couldn't quite place her voice. She sounded, oh, around Wat's age. I actually thought it might be someone we knew, but…_ "

" _Perhaps an older version of someone we know_ ," Jana said sarcastically.

" _You know that could very well be true._ "

" _I know. …what did she talk about?_ "

" _I was half-asleep._ " Alois shrugged. " _But I think… that she said that Wat's untrustworthy._ "

" _What a surprise._ "

" _And I didn't hear the rest of the conversation, since she left right after that._ "

Jana chewed her eggs slowly. " _Interesting_ ," she said at length, " _so I take it that means you're not telling Watson Justice_."

Alois laughed. " _Probably not. I'm not sure how much she needs to know in the first place - but whoever it was sneaking through the Agency, or rather the law offices, last night…_ "

" _…if she didn't trust Watson Justice, it would be more considerate to her to keep her existence a secret_ ," Jana finished. " _Assuming she even deserves our consideration._ "

" _Wat's keeping us on a need-to-know basis, yeah?_ " Alois said with a smirk, " _Why not do the same to her?_ "

" _I hope that doesn't come back to haunt us_ ," Jana commented.

" _We're leaving tomorrow. How could it?_ "

" _…we've got the whole rest of our lives, Alois._ "

" _And I intend to spend mine with nothing more to do with this whole shady time-travel business, little sister._ "

"You two talk in German a lot more now that you did last year, don't you?" Watson said casually from where she was leaning against the doorway.

"Some things just aren't meant for certain ears, ja?" Alois said innocently, with a significant glance at Wright, who pouted at his breakfast.

"As long as there's not a breakdown of trust between the three of us, right?" Watson said with a bright Justice smile, sitting down at the table and looking from Alois to Jana.

"Richtig," Alois said, countering with his own brilliant Gavin smile.

"Right," Jana said, although in Alois' opinion her von Karma smirk looked kind of sullen.

* * *

 _January 16 (2054), 10:45 PM, Wright Anything Agency, Roof_

Miguel paced back and forth, thinking hard. Bits and pieces of information gleaned from poorly-lit pictures of grainy photocopies spun through his head: the Tula Group. The Teotihuacan Foundation. Huitzilopotchli. QLF. Endless lists of names. A never-ending stream of complex physics equations. Maps with events instead of locations.

The von Karma-Gavin siblings and Watson hadn't been kidnapped, had they? Miguel came to a halt by the railing, right where the fire escape was… or rather where it was supposed to be. He was white-knuckling the handle on his coffee cup (metaphorically, of course. He was half Brazilian and as such didn't do white anything).

Edgeworth, at least, understood his concern - he was one of relatively few people who knew much about that case four years ago. The case where Alois had been kidnapped… as the prosecutor on that still-unsolved case, and more importantly as Alois' best friend, Miguel was extremely worried about the prospect of kidnapping. As were, he imagined, Alois and Jana's parents; shortly after their conversation, Edgeworth had called them. He said that they agreed with the assessment that for the time being, they were most likely fine. It was pretty obvious, though, that if their kids (and Watson) didn't turn up by morning, they were going to have every cop west of the Rockies searching for them.

Miguel leaned over the railing to look at the fire escape more closely. He had absolutely no idea what had happened to it, but the top level of it was more or less disconnected from the building. He seriously doubted that it could support any weight without crashing to the alleyway below. _Looks can be deceiving_ , he thought, and reached out to push at it, experimentally. It leaned away from his touch with a creak - for a minute there he thought it actually was going to fall, but it didn't. It also didn't settle back closer to the building, either.

 _Looks like no one's used it since it broke_ , Miguel thought, standing up straight and drinking his coffee. So it really was just as everyone suspected: the missing trio had no way of getting off of the roof without going through WAA…

"But you can't go through the Agency without running into someone, especially at that time of day," Miguel finished the thought out loud.

So if that was the case… didn't that mean they didn't leave voluntarily? Miguel shook his head, took another swig. He was jumping to conclusions, right? Evidence didn't point to kidnapping any more than it pointed to alien abduction… which, all things considered, was actually a pretty compelling theory.

And while he was staring at the roof, thinking about aliens, he was suddenly blindsided with the perfect forensic technique to get to the bottom of this: footprint detection! After all, the roof was dirty and while it was fairly windy, the dust was pretty stuck to the roof, and of course it hadn't rained all day.

Feeling more optimistic than he had in hours, grinning, Miguel ran downstairs and grabbed Detective Skye's old footprint detection kit which had somehow ended up in Wright's possession without saying a word to either Edgeworth or Wright, who watched him skeptically.

 _If this works…_ , Miguel thought giddily, lowering the obligatory pink sunglasses over his eyes. He blinked, and wondered if this would work as well in the dark. Hopefully!

Five minutes later, Miguel chucked the stupid light _and_ the little spray bottle off the roof.

"Fey, what on earth are you doing?"

Startled, Miguel spun around, taking off the glasses, to see Edgeworth standing in the doorway to the roof. "Looking for evidence," Miguel grumbled, and took a sip of coffee - bleh, did he get some detection fluid in it?

"I take it you didn't find any."

Miguel shook his head. "No, I found some, all right." He glowered into his coffee cup. "But it just confirms that my kitten, the filly, and Wat just _literally vanished into thin air_."

Edgeworth raised an eyebrow at him. "Oh?"

Miguel nodded and pointed to a certain spot on the roof. "All of their footprints lead here," he said, "and then stop."

Edgeworth walked over and scrutinized the spot where Miguel was pointing. "That makes no sense," he said, standing up straight again and adjusting his glasses. He frowned. "Something like a hot air balloon or even a helicopter would account for this, but that's impossible in this area," he said, mostly to himself.

"There's no other marks," Miguel said, dumping his coffee over the railing about where the footprint detection kid landed, "not even something like a skateboard. I don't know. It's like some kind of magic trick." He felt his face break into a half-amused, half-horrified smile at the thought of his friends being kidnapped by a magician. _This is surreal._

Edgeworth looked up and around. "Perhaps something with wires?"

"…maybe you should call your oldest daughter," Miguel suggested.

Edgeworth chuckled a little. "Trucy was never really my daughter," he said, heading back for the door, "but I will call her. It's just after one in the morning where she lives, though, so I can't guarantee she'll pick up."

"…okay," Miguel said as Edgeworth descended the stairs. He took a sip from a new cup of coffee. Edgeworth was being pretty light-hearted - for him, anyway - so apparently he didn't think his niece, nephew, and husband's employee were in any real danger at the moment. And maybe they weren't, but still Miguel couldn't figure out if he was ticked off or comforted by his boss' attitude.

He pulled out his phone again - the picture pulled up was, as far as Miguel could tell, a meticulously labeled diagram of a time loop. _Just what is Wat's role in all this?_ he asked himself, glaring at the screen and leaning against the wall near the doorway Edgeworth had just left through. _Did she take them somewhere? Did they all even go to the same place? And just where the hell are they?_

* * *

 _April 14 (2019), 6:30 PM, Wright and Co. Law Offices, Guest Bedroom_

"Alois, can I have a word with you?"

Alois gave Watson a very cautious once-over before nodding. Jana was away at the detention center, meeting with Armando one last time before the trial tomorrow; this wasn't a particular bother to Alois since he could very well stand on his own without his little sister, but he did find it a cause for suspicion. Watson was trying to get him alone on purpose, it looked like.

"What do you want to talk about?" Alois said, disguising his thoughts with a soft smile.

Watson gave him a little smile, then pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket, glanced at it, then shoved it back in. "There weren't any… incidents this morning, were there?"

Alois tilted his head. "Incidents?"

"Visitors, maybe?"

Alois frowned, twisting one finger into a fringe of hair that fell by the side of his face. "Visitors this morning…? Onkel Wright didn't get any clients, if that's what you mean. Obwohl, why would he? He won't have another case until Onkel Kristoph gets kicked off of Gramarye's defense."

Watson shook her head, expression slightly irritated. "No, no, no. By 'this morning,' I mean a bit earlier. Let's say… three o'clock, or thereabouts."

Alois shrugged indifferently. "I was asleep."

"Come on, Alois," she said, fingers playing with the hem of her shorts, "you were right in the lobby. If anyone came in…"

"Komm schon, Wat," Alois said with a grin that would have given Jana's arrogance a run for its money, "anyone will tell you I'm a heavy sleeper."

Watson gave him a suspicious look, then sighed. "So you don't know anything?"

"Nein, nichts."

"Because it seems to me like you know too much." One hand brushed over her bracelet.

Alois rolled his eyes at her. "Is this because I keep speaking Deustch with my kleine Schwester?" He put his hands on his hips. "Are we not allowed private conversations now?"

Watson glared at him, but it was almost laughable when compared to, say, Franziska's. "I just think it's a little odd that you two keep commiserating in German now, when you never did last year."

"We're spending more time around you this year, ja? Of course you'll see more of it!"

"And I happen to know that you speak English at home."

Alois shrugged again. "Your point, Wat?"

"I'm just saying it's odd."

"And I'm just saying you being suspicious of us is even more odd," Alois said nonchalantly, playing with his hair.

"Suspicious?" Watson said, sounding taken-aback. "Why would I be suspicious of you?"

"Because you think _we're_ suspicious of _you?_ " Alois said innocently. "Aber, what's there to be suspicious of, Wat?" He smiled. "We all trust each other, ja?"

Watson snorted. "Alright, alright," she said, "but this isn't over, Alois. This whole situation - everything I had to go through to achieve time-travel - it's way more complicated than you think. I need you and Jana to stick with me."

"Sicherlich," Alois purred.

"It's more dangerous than you realize," Watson said seriously, "but you and your sister are both safe with me." She looked off to the side with a weird half-smile. "And believe it or not, once we have Ares with us… I can keep him under control, Alois, don't worry about a thing. And with him, no one will mess with us."

"That's good to know."

"You'll see, Alois. This is the hand fate has dealt us - it'll be so much easier if we can look at each other's cards."

"I always play with my cards facing out," Alois said with a smile that felt more like a smirk. "All I ask is that Jana and I get to see what you've drawn."

Watson gave him a solemn nod. "Of course," she said, "of course."

"Of course."

* * *

 _April 14, 9:00 PM, Wright and Co. Law Offices_

"So tomorrow," Watson said, "Alois and I will accompany you to the trial, and we'll leave right after the new sentence is handed down." She pulled out the time device and glanced at it, making sure to not show either Jana or Alois the display. "Due to… reasons… when we go back, I'll have to manually set the destination time again."

Jana nodded. Apart from Watson's vagueness, this was probably the first time she said something that actually made sense.

Alois beamed. "I can't wait to go home and sleep in my own bed."

Jana glanced at Wright and smirked. "Will you be glad to be rid of us, Uncle Wright?"

Wright shrugged and grinned. "If it weren't for the whole 'time travel' thing, I'd let all three of you stay as long as you like."

"Tja," Alois said, "you just collect children, don't you?"

"What?" Wright said indignantly, "it's not my fault I come across so many kids who need an older brother figure."

"Or a father figure," Jana said, biting her lip to keep from laughing, then sobering up when she remembered that with Trucy came disbarment.

"I'd say you've always wanted a family of your own, Onkel Wright, is that it?" Alois said. He was being just a little bit smug.

Wright coughed. "I'm only 26." He frowned. "…I haven't had a girlfriend since college…"

There was a knock on the door. Wright went to go get it, which was just as well because Jana and Alois were exchanging glances and giggling at the girlfriend comment. Watson just rolled her eyes and glared at the two of them. Jana wasn't bothered for a variety of reasons, the biggest of which was the simple fact that in less than 18 hours, she would be going home.

"Ah, Edgeworth."

"…I see the time-travelers are still here."

"Yeah," Wright said, walking back over to them with Edgeworth in tow, "they were just making fun of me for wanting a family."

"You deserve it," Edgeworth said dryly.

"We weren't making fun of him," Alois protested.

"And it is not as though he does not get a family of his own in the future," Jana commented, crossing her arms.

"I know," Wright said, rolling his eyes, "you two are my niece and nephew. For some reason."

"Some reason indeed," Watson muttered. "Mr. Edgeworth, I heard that you were looking into the prosecutor at Mr. Armando's trial…"

Jana ignored Edgeworth and Watson discussing some Finnish guy in favor of rooting around in her pocket for a minute. She eventually drew out a folded-up, slightly crumpled piece of paper, which she diligently smoothed out.

"Was ist das?" Alois asked.

"Something I accidentally left in my pocket a few days before we left," Jana said, handing the paper to Wright. "It is a picture of all of us at our last Christmas party."

"Ach, that seems so far away now," Alois said, looking at the photo over Wright's shoulder, then pointing at the group in the middle of the photo. "Sehen, that's your family. Your eldest daughter, Trucy - she's adopted - your eldest son, Miles - Misty - Diego and Maya Valerie - they're twins."

Wright blinked at the picture. "…I look _old_ ," he said.

"You are 61 in our time," Jana said, shrugging.

"…dang." He examined the photo some more. "That must be Maya in the Master's robes… I suppose that's her daughter next to Miles?"

"The one with the ponytail?"

"Yeah."

"Ja, that's Mairwen."

"And… Gumshoe and Maggey got married? Is that their son?"

"His name is Ace Gumshoe," Jana informed him.

"I see you three," Wright said, pointing them out. "…is that Ema Skye next to Watson?"

"That's her Mutter," Alois said.

"And that is her father," Jana said, pointing out Apollo Justice.

"I guess that explains a lot. Never seen him before, though…"

"Alright," Watson said, stomping over, "what are you three doing?"

"Nothing," Wright said, quickly handing the photo back to Jana.

"He is not going to remember this anyway," Jana said, rolling her eyes.

"Stop pointing that out," Wright whined, "it gives me the creeps."

"I'd like to see that," Edgeworth said, taking the photo from Jana while Watson scowled in the background. "Hm. It seems that I was right about needing to get glasses at some point."

"That's all you have to comment about?" Wright said, moving over to keep looking at the picture.

Edgeworth shook his head pompously. "I'll admit, I am wondering how you managed to have so many children. Where is the mother?"

"…good question."

"Long story," Alois said, coughing into his fist.

"One that you'll have to live out yourself," Watson snapped, snatching up the photo and shoving it into her pocket. She rounded on Jana and Alois. "I told you two - we don't know how they might be influenced by finding out the future!"

"And here I thought that this had already happened. Clearly Uncle Wright's decision to adopt Trucy was influenced by the future knowledge that he did," Jana said smugly.

Watson opened her mouth, then closed it, then her eyebrows drew together as she sighed. "I give up," she grumbled, stalking off in the direction of the guest bedroom.

"Wonderful," Edgeworth said dryly. "I was hoping she could tell me something about Tauno Tavallinen…"

"I guess that's just something we'll have to deal with when we're 61," Wright said, then turned to Jana. "Thank you."

Jana just grinned at him. "You have hard times ahead of you," she told him, "but perhaps now you will have hope in your subconscious."

"Now _that_ was ominous," Alois said, ruffling Jana's hair.

* * *

 _January 16 (2054), 11:30 PM, Wright Anything Agency, Roof_

Jana stepped out of the door, back into the present, with a smile on her face. She wasn't even giving any thought to the trial she had just finished - it was, as expected, short, since all that had really happened was that she pointed out to the judge that Armando's sentence made no sense, and the prosecutor this time around was, well, an actual prosecutor. She was just looking forward to going home and fixing her sleep schedule.

Alois stepped out immediately behind her, closely followed by Watson. None of them said anything, at least until Alois gasped quietly and threw an arm out in front of Jana, and frantically signaled to Watson.

It only took a second for Jana to realize what had startled him: Miguel Fey-Armando was sleeping, sitting up and still holding his cellphone, next to the roof's exit door. And from the looks of it, he was waking up now. Watson was just fast enough that she was able to hit a button on the time device and cause the time door to blink out of existence just as Miguel was raising his head.

And once he laid eyes on the trio, he was on his feet - his cell phone clattered to the floor - grabbing Jana and Alois, one in each arm. Jana thought at first that he was just glad to see them (after all, it did look a lot darker now than when they left, so she was sure they had indeed ended up being gone long enough for someone to notice), and despite herself she blushed because Miguel holding her was more or less exactly what she had wanted since she was maybe eight - well, except for the fact that her brother was in his other arm… that definitely wasn't part of the fantasy…

But then she noticed he was _glaring_ at Watson, and realized that the hug wasn't one of joy and relief, but rather one of protection. She exchanged alarmed glances with Alois.

"Oh, shoot," Watson said mildly, "what time is it?"

"You've been gone for over _six hours_ ," Miguel snapped, his grip on Jana and Alois tightening. Jana noted how cold his hands were… how long had he been out here?

"We just lost track of time," Watson said with a weak smile, "calm down, Miguel."

"You three vanished into thin air!"

"You're overreacting."

"I've been investigating!"

Watson frowned at him, then stooped and picked up Miguel's cellphone. "What's this?" she said, her eyebrows raising and then furrowing. "Miguel…" she said with a dangerous edge to her voice, looking up from the phone - Miguel took a step back, and neither Jana nor Alois resisted the move - "why do you have pictures of my personal files?"

"I was trying to figure out where you three went," he snarled at her. "As far as I can tell you'd _kidnapped them_ for - for Huitzilopotchli or something!"

Watson narrowed her eyes at the name. "Huitzilopotchli and I have nothing to do with each other," she said coldly.

"I don't believe it!"

Now it was Watson's turn to snarl. "You're awfully disloyal, aren't you, Miguel?" she said, "first Alois last month, now me - tell me, is there anyone you _won't_ turn on because they _happen_ to be a _little_ suspicious if you look at certain evidence in a certain light?"

"No one ever said he was loyal in the first place," Alois piped up.

"Quiet, kitten," Miguel muttered, then said to Watson, "when it was just Ares calling you crazy, I didn't care. But this is just too much evidence, Wat!"

"There's nothing illegal about researching temporal physics!" Watson snapped.

"You don't need that much classified information to research physics!"

"And I can't believe you believed _Ares_ of all people-"

"It takes one to know one, doesn't it, Wat?"

"Miguel, beruhige dich," Alois said, ducking out from under his arm, "we went with her willingly."

"You - what?" Miguel took a step back from Alois, dropping his arm from around Jana at the same time.

"I… I can't really say what happened at this time," he said, with an obvious glance at Watson.

"We were not in any danger," Jana promised.

Miguel looked back and forth between them, aghast. "But - she - all that weird research - Ares - _you were gone for six hours!_ "

"Entschuldigen Sie bitte," Alois said, lowering his head.

Miguel looked back and forth between them again, then narrowed his eyes and stalked over to Watson. "This isn't over," he said through gritted teeth, and snatched his phone back. "I'm onto you, and I _won't_ let this sort of thing happen again."

"Of course not," Watson said blandly.

"Count on it," Miguel spat, then grabbed Jana and Alois by the wrists and marched them down the stairs. "You two have a lot of explaining to do."

"We should start with explaining to our parents," Jana said quietly.

"I know," Miguel snorted, "I'm taking you two home. But tomorrow I expect you, kitten, filly, to _tell me_ what exactly _happened_ during those six hours you spent in the ether."

"I don't know that we can," Alois said helplessly.

"We are going to have to try," Jana said grimly.

* * *

In the end, Jana and Alois were both grounded for two weeks each. Miguel and Watson's friendship was completely ruined, and Miguel's cellphone turned up missing the next day, only to be found again under the wheels of Chief Prosecutor Edgeworth's car. While it was discovered in time to be rescued from an untimely demise, all of its data had been wiped.

The following week, Watson, who had faced no real repercussions for her six hours in the ether, passed the bar exam and successfully defended Ares in court. He got off on an insanity defense, but was now relegated to spending the foreseeable future in the psychiatric ward at Los Angeles Central Hospital.

Ace and Maria started dating again. A betting pool started up among Pearl Fey's children as to how long it would last this time. Smart money was on three weeks.

And so life went on. And the cracks in spacetime waited for someone to once again fall through them…

* * *

 **A/N: As usual I'd like to thank my readers for all their support and favs and watches and reviews, etc. etc. (Well, one review, anyway.) I'll get the next installment of the Janaverse uploaded as soon as I can - I don't have a title quite yet but from the looks of it it'll be called either Here, Turnabout! or like, Turnameowt or something. Maybe Tabby Turnabout? Look, the summary'll probably mention cats. And Ares. And Gregory Edgeworth and Manfred von Karma.**

 **Now that I've finished with this fic, I'd just like to say that my favorite scene was the one in this chapter where Watson and Alois were talking. I felt that we didn't get to see enough of Alois' manipulative side in JvKG:AA, mostly because the narrator almost all the way through is Jana, who knows him far too well for him to try anything like that on her. I'm going to have fun writing Alois and Watson's interactions from here on out...**

 **Hope you enjoyed!**

* * *

 **German translations, as requested by Number One Fan of Journey (btw, I don't actually speak German...) - and I'll be including this at the end of all future chapters with Alois in them:**

 **Onkel: Uncle  
Nein: No (you should know this, haha)  
War nicht so wichtig: literally, It's not so important, but used here as Nevermind  
Ja: Yes (again, you should know already)  
Richtig: Right  
Obwohl: Although**  
 **Komm schon: Come on**  
 **Nichts: Nothing**  
 **Deustch: German (obvious, no?)**  
 **Kleine Schwester: Little sister**  
 **Aber: But**  
 **Sicherlich: Definitely or Certainly or Of course**  
 **Tja: Yeah, used as a sort of changing the subject**  
 **Was ist das: What is that**  
 **Sehen: See**  
 **Mutter: Mother**  
 **Beruhige dich: Calm down**  
 **Entschuldigen Sie bitte: Excuse me please or Forgive me please; a formal apology**


End file.
